the big house library

Recording Your Podcast...

First, record your podcast with one of the library's digital audio recorders. You can check them out from Ms. Koval or Miss Helen. 

Please be careful with these, though, because if "you break 'em, you buy 'em!" 

If you can't figure out which buttons to press when, please review the user manual. 

Recording Your Podcast with Gcast...

Another way to record your podcast is with Gcast. Gcast is a website that allows you to record voice messages, mix in music, upload, and share audio files right from your cell phone! For free! For real!

The sound quality isn't pristine, but it's definitely passable. If you want to try Gcasting, this page will tell you all you need to know. And if you want to hear an example, take a listen to my first Gcasts with Ms. Gardner's class.
  

 
Editing Your Podcast with Audacity...

If you need to do any trimming of your recording, you can use a program called Audacity. The download is safe and best of all free.

If you want to be able to convert files to MP3s, you'll need to also download and install their encoder.  

Unfortunately, I don't think you can use Audacity to edit Gcasts, and to be honest, I don't know if you can edit Gcasts at all without deleting and re-recording them, but I'm not sure about that. If you figured this out already, please add a comment to this blog post and let us know how.

Uploading Your Podcast to a Weebly Blog...

Click new post to create a new post. In the dashboard above, click and drag elements you want to add to your blog post: like paragraphs under basic and photos under multimedia. 

To upload your audio file, under multimedia, click and drag the file icon, then upload your WMA or MP3 file from your computer, recorder, drive, or device. (See for example the podcast below by Ms. Gardner.)  

To edit or delete your post, click edit under the comments link in the post. But if you're sharing a blog with classmates or colleagues, please don't edit or delete someone else's post because that's not nice.
 

ms_gardner_gets_all_giddy_about_podcasting.wma
File Size:	209 kb
File Type:	wma

Download File

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Uploading Your Podcast to Blogger...

Because Blogger doesn't yet allow you to upload audio files (like MP3s or WMAs) by themselves with out embedding a player, you're going to need a work around to upload your podcasts to Blogger. 

You can use Windows Movie Maker to make a video file of your audiocast, which you can easily upload to Blogger, no questions asked. This helpful blogpost will tell you how-to. 
 
For tips on how to edit Blogger blog posts, check out this screencast I made with a Casa student named Ryan. We walk and talk you through all the steps.
 
Well, that's about it! Got questions? Email me or IM me. Good luck and happy blog-casting! =)
 

the blog readability test went bye bye. i'm bummed. i thought it had merit. and so did mental_floss! 

www.outbrain.com allows blog readers to give ratings and recommendations to posts they read. i'm giving it a try. let me know what you think. :)

i read 2 very different things this morning...

the first thing i read was total tear-jerker! it was the editorial in the  january/february 2009 issue of american libraries called dear president obama.  it made me not mind having to work on another holiday weekend to get ready for another busy week of supporting my school's awesome students and their talented teachers. it made me not care that i had to share a banana with my husband at breakfast this morning because we had to dip into our meager monthly food bugdet to buy extra supplies for the library. it made me proud to be a librarian. and it made me proud to be an american.

the second thing i read was downright distrubing and thoroughly disenheartening. it was a racist remark presumably posted by a casa student as a comment on this blog. this comment made me feel sad and mad and everything in between. racism is wrong. and it will not be allowed on my watch. while i encourage you to participate on this website, i will not tolerate hate. i have since deleted the profanity, but be aware that i will be investigating the matter fully, and i will get to the bottom of it. you know who you are, you know what you said, and you need to know that it is not okay.

anyway, i don't want to dwell on the negative. so, i'm going to include the american libraries letter and end this on an up-beat. here's what it said:

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Dear President Obama,

As you become the 44th president of the United States of America, probably the last thing you need is more people telling you what they want you to do for them. From the Headquarters of the American Library Association in Chicago, it looks to me as if everybody is asking you for something, and librarians, of course, don’t want to miss the boat. But before we get in line with our demands, let me offer one modest suggestion for how to deal with this profession: Let us show you what we can do for you.

In 2005, before you keynoted the American Library Association’s Annual Conference here in Chicago, I sidled up to you in the green room with a tape recorder and asked you to talk about libraries. You focused thoughtfully on my questions, one of which was, “Can you tell us more about the effect libraries have had on you?” You answered that although people tend to think of libraries in terms of just being sources for reading material or research, it was a librarian at the New York Public Library in Manhattan who helped you find the community organizing job you were looking for. “I probably would not be in Chicago were it not for the Manhattan public library,” you said, adding that the librarian had identified lists of potential employers and, “I wrote to every organization; one of them wound up being an organization in Chicago that I got a job with.”

People all over the country are using libraries in larger numbers than ever before, partly for reading and research as they always have but also because libraries have become community solution centers where people are learning new skills, meeting their neighbors, and getting practical help with some of life’s essentials, such as managing their dwindling finances or, like you, finding a job.

Following our brief interview, you went on to deliver a keynote speech so clearly tailored to librarians that we immediately asked your staff for permission to adapt it as a cover story in the August 2005 issue of American Libraries. In it you said, “More than a building that houses books and data, the library represents a window to a larger world, the place where we’ve always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward….” Many of us walked away from that speech already saying, “Yes we can.”

We can continue to be the “sanctuaries of learning” that you remember. We can foster literacy, what you called “the most basic currency of the knowledge economy.” We can produce the highest achieving students when they attend schools with good library media centers. We can help parents prepare children for the workforce and for a lifetime of reading and learning. Libraries are central to community development, civic engagement, and scholarly excellence. Therefore, the librarians of this nation ask not what you can do for libraries but what libraries can do to help you solve the daunting problems we all face. We’re at your service.

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The Big House Library is on Twitter! What's Twitter? Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that lets you keep in touch with people using the web, your phone, or IM. Twitter helps people stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: what are you doing? So, want to know what we're doing? Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/bighouselibrary. =)