OK, so let's check out what it took for me to get that podcast on Blogger...
I started out by downloading and learning how to use Audacity, a free audio recording program. This would be the program that I would be using to record my voice. From there I needed to install a LAME mp3 encoder that I would use to convert the Audacity file to an mp3. My Audacity program refused to convert due to an unknown error. After further research I discovered an alternative LAME encoder file, at audacity.com, that I was able to use in order to convert the file. After that, I discovered that you can't directly upload mp3's to youtube so I opened iMovie and began my next project. I created a simple background for my iMovie with the name of my video as well as my own name that would be displayed for the majority of the podcast. The last 8 seconds or so of my podcast show off the Creative Commons Copyright information that I created at creativecommons.org that I would use to copyright my podcast. I copied and pasted that information into my final frame of my iMovie podcast. The program I decided to give my tutorial on was called screencast-o-matic and it is a program you can use to record live whatever you are doing on the desktop of your laptop. I composed a script to read for the podcast. Took me 5 takes to get it right. Then I exported the audio recording from Audacity to my laptop desktop and from there loaded it into iTunes so that I could add it as the soundtrack to my iMovie. I kept things simple but I could have added captions or animations but what i was doing but for now, the basic podcast was my goal. After I finished editing my iMovie, I exported the video to the desktop of my computer and uploaded it to you tube. I also included all Creative Commons Copyright information in the description of the video.
After that, I copied the embedded code from youtube in an html view of my blogger blog entry and pasted the code into it. Reverted back to my compose view of blogger and hit "publish". After that I noticed my video was a bit large so I went back in and bascially winging it, re-wrote the html code by manually changing the size of my video. Sure enough, by cutting out 40 pixels of width, I was able to get the video to fit and look good in my Blogger blog.
I also did the same on my google sites website but I used an embed gadget on a page I created specially for my podcast. Included my Creative Commons information again and saved all of my work. I also added the script of my podcast just in case anyone would need a hard copy of what I say.
I've spent around 8 hours on this project total from start to finish but will still go back and will tweak a few things.
These podcasts are great because just like my iMovie project, I could record lessons that I could (thanks to all of my practice now) quickly upload to youtube or my google site for students to download and listen to.
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