Incorporating Podcasts into Your Moodle Course
A podcast is an audio or a video file that is streamed media, theme driven, and downloadable. Podcasts emerged with developments of Web 2.0 technology and handheld devices like the iPod. Podcasts are especially useful in a Moodle course when students access Moodle files through handheld devices such as smartphones, iPads, and iPods. Students can use podcasts when creating interviews, for instance, and the completed podcast can then be uploaded to the Moodle course wiki, glossary, or database.
A number of free media software programs enable you to create podcasts:
- Skype (www.ehow.com/how_2034834_podcast-with-skype.html): A great tool for creating podcast interviews or for recording meetings and making them available. It's free, and many people are very familiar with Skype.
- Audacity (http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Creating_a_simple_voice_and_music_Podcast_with_Audacity): See the preceding section for details about Audacity.
- Voicethread (http://voicethread.com): Another application used widely within education. Moodle supports Voicethread.
Moodle for mobiles requires specific plug-ins. See http://docs.moodle.org/en/Moodle_for_Mobiles.
Many great resources can assist you with creating podcasts. A very good article published in 2005, which has been updated to keep current with technological changes, is “How to create a simple interview using a podcast” available at http://onlamp.com/pub/a/mac/2005/10/10/how-to-podcast.html. Also see Podcasting For Dummies, by Tee Morris, Chuck Tomasi, Evo Terra, and Kreg Steppe.
You upload a podcast to your course similar to how you upload video files. You can link to the podcast, embed it, or place it in a block. You can link to or upload media files by using Moodle activities (wikis, databases, and glossaries).