TechLearn Insider

Creating Your First Podcast

By Kaliym A. Islam

Ever since Apple's release of iTunes 4.9 with built-in support for podcasting, hundreds of thousands of people have discovered the free audio programs now available as podcasts. While most are content to simply listen to podcasts, many are already creating their own radio-style programs.

What makes podcasting so attractive to so many people (besides the opportunity to reach such a large audience) is the ease with which one can create a podcast. This ease of use is especially attractive to training professionals under pressure to deliver new content to support the rapidly changing work environment.

The first and most important step in creating a podcast is planning. This should be a no-brainer to training professionals who are used to designing instruction prior to delivering it.

Before starting to record, organize the content for the show or class the same way you would organize any training session. Ensure that you use Gagne's nine elements of instruction. Make notes, prepare your interviews (if any), and try to improvise as little as possible. The best podcasts sound spontaneous because of the preparation that went into making them sound spontaneous.

Podcasts are essentially mini lectures. We all know how challenging it is to make lectures engaging. So be short and simple. Too many podcasts try and fill an hour with whatever it takes to fill that time. Listeners are more likely to embrace a podcast if it is short. This does not mean that one-hour podcasts won't work; but you may want to begin with shorter podcasts-say 10 to 20 minutes-to attract listeners who might be turned off by the idea of devoting an hour to an unknown program. If listeners like the shortcasts, then they'll stick around for the longcasts.

The Hardware

Another beautiful thing about podcasting is that you don't need much hardware to create one. Podcasts can be created using any Mac or PC computer with a recent version of either Windows or Mac OS X. (Windows XP or Mac OS X 10.3 or later are recommended.) The only other hardware required is a microphone, which is the most important element in the recording chain, other than your voice.

The way a listener hears your voice is greatly affected by the quality of your mic. Nothing will turn off a learner more than a distracting and "unprofessional" sounding voice. Do not attempt to use an internal microphone in a computer, like the ones found on laptops and some desktop computers. These mics will pick up ambient sounds, such as the noise of the computer, as well as anything that might move on a desk while recording is taking place. Don't use a cheap mic that may have come with your computer either. These mics are generally of very low quality and are designed for voice chats, not recording.

While the free mics that come with computers are typically not an option, the cost of podcasting still remains cheap. Many podcasters use USB headsets that are designed for both voice chats and recording. The headsets cost no more than $50 ( U.S.).

Recording Software

The next component needed to create a podcast is the recording software. Recording a voice is relatively simple, and there are a variety of PC and Mac programs that can do this. One of the more popular is Audacity, a multi-platform tool that can record, edit and post-process audio. Perhaps its greatest advantage is that it's free. This open-source program has become the standard tool for podcasters who want to record shows, edit recordings, and combine other recordings (such as intros, jingles or music) to create finished shows. Because it is free, Audacity is an excellent option for a trainer or training department experimenting with a first podcast.

Everything you record with Audacity appears on screen as sound waves that can be edited, very much like a word processing program. This makes it easy to delete the "ums" and "you knows" wherever they appear. The program also makes it easy to snip out boring or screwed-up parts of the recording. Audacity also has tools that reduce background noise and static, create echo effects, and increase or decrease the amplitude of voices.

One major limitation of Audacity, however, is that while it can be used to record yourself it cannot easily record interviews with people who aren't in the same room; Audacity only records directly from an input source such as a microphone. If the training content that you plan to put out will be in the form of an interview, you will need another option.

Many podcasters use the free teleconferencing program Skype to conduct their interviews of other people. Even with Skype, however, recording interviews requires additional software. The most popular among podcasters are the Windows program Virtual Audio Cable or the Mac program Audio Hijack Pro. Either of these programs traps Skype's audio and saves it so that it can be edited in Audacity.

Once the audio has been recorded and edited, the finished podcast must be exported in one of several formats, including MP3, AIFF and WAV. If the podcast is to be exported as an MP3 file, you must download the LAME MP3 encoder as a helper for Audacity. If AIFF or WAV are used, iTunes can handle the MP3 compression. The latter option is probably best, because it allows more flexibility in how the file can be compressed.

Converting Your Podcast

Once everything is recorded, the next step is to get the podcast into a form that's easy to share. A one-hour WAV file will take up about 600 MB; and listeners won't download such large files. So the podcast should be compressed into either MP3 or AAC format. MP3 is the de-facto standard format for podcasts. Unless there is a very good reason for using another format, stick with MP3. Using anything but MP3 will mean that some users may not be able to use the podcast. iTunes, a free software download from Macintosh, has the ability to convert WAV files to MP3.

Once the MPS file has been created it should be saved to a web server and then tested with any MPS player. The files can go anywhere on your site, but the best practice is to put all of them into one directory, so they are easy to find and manage.

The final step in creating a podcast is to make it accessible to the world. This is accomplished by creating a podcast newsfeed. Podcast feeds are RSS files that describe your podcast, along with information for each show. These feeds allow others to search for, and find, your podcast. It also allows individuals to subscribe to your podcast. What this means is that anytime a new podcast is created, the subscriber automatically has the new file downloaded to his or her MP3 player. An RSS file is just a text file that links to your MP3 file. Any text editor can be used to create an RSS news feed. However, most podcasters use blogging programs or other applications to automatically generate newsfeeds.

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Kaliym Islam is Director of Learning Product Development and Technology Services for the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., where he provides corporate leadership and vision relating to the development, implementation, and support of learning initiatives.