Week 9 Reflection: Podcasting

What That BuZZZ All About?!

It took me a couple days to figure out what I wanted to do a podcast on.  I listened through a variety of podcasts, and finally decided that I was more engaged with podcasts that had woven in music and other sounds effects.  At first I was going to do a podcast at school, recording people about a topic, but then quickly realized I didn't have much time to get the recordings.  So then I turned it back on to myself, and asked myself what am I interested in that I could talk about, and that might be interesting to other people.  This brought me to the idea of making a podcast about bees.  

As a new beekeeper I have been very excited about learning about bees and what it takes to be a beekeeper.  At first I thought maybe to do a podcast about what it takes to be a beekeeper, but then I thought I might be able to grab the interest of a larger audience if I talked about what are some things we all can do to support the population of bees.

I decided to start my podcast out with a little 101 about bees, and then move into what can we do.  I wanted to do my podcast using WeVideo, as we have a school subscription and I had never thought of using WeVideo for podcasting, so I wanted to try it out.  Plus I knew that I could bring this idea back to my teachers, which I did, and I already have a couple who are interested. 

First I wrote a script of what I wanted to talk about.  I wanted it to have that introduction, middle and conclusion feel, as some of the podcasts I had listened to, so I tried to write it in that style.  I did two full recordings of it, and decided the second one came out better.  One tip I had read about, was when I was recording, if I made a mistake to make a pause, so that it would be easier to go back and edit.  This worked out great.  I didn't feel the pressure of trying to get it all correct in one speaking session. 

One major issue I ran into was that after I went through and edited the entire narrative, I went to add in sound effects (like Pooh Bear) and realized that WeVideo audio editing wouldn't allow me to drop audio between audio, without messing the rest up.  I emailed help, and unfortunately received back this response.  
         "I'm afraid that only the pieces on the Main track automatically arrange themselves. If you want to add the piece of audio from Audio2 track on the Audio1 track, between the two pieces, you will have to arrange every other piece that comes after. Sorry for the inconvenience this is causing."

So, suddenly I realized that my desire to add in lots of sound effects was going to be a much longer process than I had anticipated.  But I worked though it, and for my first podcast, I think it came out pretty well.

I have some students who are studying the Olympic in Ancient Greece, so I was thinking maybe have them make some sports podcasts.  In PE they are learning some Greek Olympic style games, and it might be fun for them to narrate them.  There are lots of great idea for using podcasts with students, I definitely need to try some out with them.