Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 07:14
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Antarctic Weather Stations

Kirk,

 

Awesome!   Humans depend so much on vision and language to learn that I never appreciated the value or potential of audio podcasts until I started listening to yours!   I am so used to imagining someone else’s experience from the written language they use or the photos they share but your use of audio has made me a believer.    Your last posting of the helo ride was great because it told a story and since you did not include text it forced me to listen more intently.  What a great teaching technique.

 

Now, for my question:

 

I want to try to make my own audio recordings.  I have experience using video cameras and iMovie software to create video podcasts as Quicktime movies and I can extract audio from video.  What tools did you use to record your sound files and convert them to podcasts?

 

 

Have fun and keep making memories....for all of us,

 

Jeff Peneston

Liverpool High School, Liverpool, NY

http://fc.liverpool.k12.ny.us/%7epeneston/

Fri, 01/11/2008 - 09:08

Kirk Beckendorf

Hi Jeff,Thanks for all of the kind words. I'm glad that you enjoyed the podcast. I wish I could say that yesterday's journal entry was all planned around the podcast. Actually I uploaded the podcast, with the plan to come back later and type up a journal entry, but I locked my key in the lab and couldn't get back in until this morning.
Anyway I am using an iaudio voice recorder. It is basically an MP3 player/recorder that PolarTREC provided me, it is about the size of a cigarette lighter and has a cord to hang around your neck and has a built in mic. I have never used one before and really don't know much about them, but have also now thought they could be a great teaching tool for students to use and make their own audio recordings. You can find all sorts of digital recorders at most places that sell electronics. I have not shopped around much and don't know much about them, except that the prices that I have seen, as I pass by display cases, is that they tend to start at around $90-100.
The audio editing software I have been using is called Audacity which is freeware, you can download it at... http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
I am not sure how much instruction they give you about the software on the website, the tech guys at PolarTREC gave us a crash couse on using and editing audio. The program is not the most intuitive so let me know if you need some help with the basics (which is all I know).
Just to give you some idea... to make yesterday's audio report I edited and combined 3-4 different recordings that I had made.
Hope that helps. 
Kirk 

Fri, 01/11/2008 - 09:17

Jeff Peneston

Kirk,
Great.  I will share your suggestions with the computer tech in my building and I am sure he can help me figure our the hardware and software.  I might even talk him into buying me a recorder!

Thanks!

Fri, 01/11/2008 - 10:42

Kirk Beckendorf

Jeff,I suppose that you could do the same thing if you have a computer with a mic, its just kind of difficult to hang it around your neck.
kirk