For effective online English-ESL instruction, teachers use multimedia tools of which voice are being most experimented nowadays since the podcast technology has made inroads into internet communications in the last few years. After using an expensive and complicated podcast creation software, I have come to see that teachers do not need expensive podcast software to produce handy podcast feeds. I believe that with adequate information on what program to use and basic knowledge of how to record voice files, and then upload them to your web page is sufficiently enough. Here, I will explain necessary tasks for teachers to create podcast files easily and at no cost:
First, you need a web page or blog. I recommend blog because they are easily created and managed. If you currently don't have a blog, you can create it within minutes. There is plenty of information on the Internet on blogging for those interested. To find out more about blogging, please visit http://webdesign.about.com/od/weblogs/tp/aatp_weblogs.htm. I have my own blog created with Blogger, one of the easier interfaces for this purpose, which you will find at https://www.blogger.com/start.
Second, after creating your blog, create a small podcast file on your computer for your students: choose a topic of interest to your students; write down a brief paragraph on the topic informative for your students and record the text by using the sound recorder device on your computer, and then save it as a sound file. If you have a sound card installed in your computer, then your PC should have a sound recorder along with the sound card. I have a high-end laptop with Microsoft sound-recorder, Version 5.1, and often use it for this purpose conveniently. To see if you have a sound recorder on your PC, follow this path:
Start Menu>Programs>Accessories>Entertainment>Sound Recorder
If you are a Mac user, check it with your vendor. The bottom line is recording with the computer sound recorder is easy as recording with a standalone machine--as long as your computer has this functionality.
The final step is to upload your podcast file to your blog/web page. In order to do that, you need a third party vendor's program. There are many on the Internet, and I have just tried one: Museum Pods FeedMe at http://www.museumpods.com/. This program worked well. It was easy to register and install it to my blog. To use FeedMe, create your account, login, and you will be walked through to insert this interface to your web page/blog. Then you will insert necessary info in the form and upload your podcast. This program prompts the user to create a widget (sidebar profile for your content). Once you create your podcast feed, widgets can help to draw more audience to your feeds.
keywords: esl,english,podcast,pronunciation,e-learning,esl online,esl instruction,podcast creation tips
abstract: This article provides instructions for ESL teachers on how to create podcast easy way, how to use the PC default sound-record interface to produce pronunciation podcasts easily and how to publish ESL podcasts for free.
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