RECAP Wiki - Software "goodies"

Here are some that we have found so far for audio, enhanced and video podcasting, podcast directories and also some (free) general tools and podcasting resources ...

Audio podcasting

A very useful software application for Mac OS X is the MP3 Trimmer. This clever piece of software allows you to remove unwanted portions of your MP3 files – without losing any of the quality. This means that there is no need to re-encode the audio and convert between formats using other applications. The software is free to download and all features are available to use but it can be registered at low cost.
Audacity is a free and very easy-to-use audio editor and recorder that can be used on different PC platforms - Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. With the software you can record live audio; convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs; edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files; cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together and change the speed or pitch of a recording.

Enhanced podcasting

Podcaster is a releatively inexpensive piece of software produced by Kudlian Soft in the UK. Available for both Windows and Mac OS X, the software makes it easy to create enhanced podcasts. Basically, an enhanced podcast is an audio file containing chapter markers where you can include titles, images and web links. A bonus is that the images in these files can also be viewed on an iPod with photo capabilities as well as via iTunes and your web browser of course!
The latest version of the popular package Garageband for Mac OS X - Garageband 3 - now includes a artwork track for podcasts. As part of the iLife '06 suite of software from Apple, this makes it easy to include artwork from iPhoto for example.

Video podcasting

Video podcast can come in a variety of formats. Unfortunately, the range of formats can become quite confusing and making sure that this will "play" properly on a PC can be a challenge.
The video iPod from Apple certainly showed what the future for video podacsts can be. The formats used include the tradition MOV format, the new M4V video format that uses the latest scalable codec and the more generic MP4. These can be "played" in iTunes and with Quicktime Player - available for both the Mac OS X and Windows platforms.
Google video has a number of videos listed in the directory and videos can be uploaded in a number of formats including: AVI, ASF, QuickTime, Windows Media and MPEG. The Google video player can be downloaded from the website - but for Windows only.
Flash movies are one of the most popular formats used on the internet as the plugin software is installed on most PCs. To watch a video selected from Google Video, for example, you will need to have the latest versions of the Flash Player plugin installed on your computer. Flash movies have not made an extensive appearance in podcasts as yet.

Podcast directories

Podzinger is not an ordinary podcast directory! Earlier this year, Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) the Massachusetts company that developed ARPAnet (the forerunner of the Internet) launched this service that searches the Web for audio podcasts. It uses proprietary speech-recognition technology to translate the audio into text and index the content. The company has now introduced indexing for video podcasts too. Just follow the link and submit the details for your RSS feed. It takes about a week for the scanning process to index the material. Cool!

General tools

Google provides a toolbar which sits at the top of your web browser. It includes a spell-checker, that will underline spelling mistakes in an online form and suggest corrections. Online forms include the editing window of this Wiki, as well as many comment boxes on blogs and other similar pages. Those who are curious about how Google ranks web pages, can also use the toolbar to see what mark out of ten for importance Google gives any given page.
del.icio.us is a social bookmark service. It gives you your own web page where you can bookmark your favourite websites. This is particularly useful if you use more than one computer, or if you want to share you bookmarks with a group such as a class. You can tag bookmarks with keywords, so if you are working on a project called "stories" you can easily pull up all your links with that tag. You can also search to see the bookmarks other del.ico.us users have tagged with "stories".
Bloglines Bloglines is an online RSS Reader. Most news sites and blogs these days offer RSS or Atom feeds. These provide an easy way for users to subscribe to the latest content, and view it without actually visiting the originating website. Instead, users collect their favourite feeds from various news providers inside an feed-reader that checks for the latest updates. Feeds are sometimes known as "live bookmarks". It is much quicker to sift from one feed to another, than to move from website to website. Some feed-readers come as programs which run on your own computer. Others are encorporated into web browsers. Bloglines is an online reader, which collects your feeds on a web page, making it particularly useful for a group such as a class that wants to share RSS feeds and follow the same news sources.
Writely is an online Word processor. Instead of writing your documents on your computer, you write them on a web page. It is compatible with Word documents, which can be uploaded into it, and it offers many of the same features as Word. Documents can be kept private to you, or made public. Writely is particularly useful for working on projects with collaborators. You can invite others to work on an individual document with you by sending them an email from within Writely.
Sykpe This is a really good resource if you need to make local or international telephone calls. The technology is very impressive and basically uses VOIP - Voice Over Internet Protocols. In addition to making free calls to other users across the internet, you can also use Sykpe to call a land line but this is for a fee. Obtaining a Sykpe account is an easy process and the software is cross-platform. With your account you also get chat facilities which can be fairly useful. Increasingly, podcasters are beginning to use Sykpe to record online interviews. It is very important that you always notify whoever you choose to interview to seek permission and to say when you are start and stop the recording.

Podcasting Resources

PoducateMe If you are looking for a comprehensive guide to podcasting then the online website created by Micah Ovadia is just what you need. Micah's website (Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education) is well designed and informative, providing a wealth of information and concise details about all aspects of podcasting within an educational context. There are a total of 186 pages which are well written, carefully indexed and presented in a readily accessible format. This is a worthy online publication, an invaluable and informative resource for educators wanting to find out more about the "art and science" of podcasting.
Tips for a successful school podcast Colleagues from the Wolverhampton City Technology Centre in the UK have published this valuable post. A range of interesting hints and tips about creating a successful podcast, based on practical experience. The post also includes examples of podcasts to illustrate the key messages. This is a most useful resource that all teachers and other educational professionals will find invaluable.