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Podcasting: From ideation to final product

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Podcasting can be a useful tool that you may want to consider adding to your course. In addition to being an engaging way to share content with your students, you may even consider having your students submit a podcast as an assigned project. If you're new to podcasting, there are definitely a few things to acquaint yourself with before getting started. Fortunately, with the information within this guide, a bit of hardware, and some web resources, you'll soon be comfortable creating, editing, and sharing your new content.

Jump to:

  1. What is a podcast?
  2. Plan your podcast
  3. Choose and set up your microphone
  4. Pick your recording style
  5. Edit your content
  6. Distribute your final work

1. What is a podcast?

  1. Definition - A podcast can be thought of as a digital recording, where 1 or more people speak about topics of their choosing. While a lot of podcasts feature multiple people, they can in fact exist with just 1 person speaking. Podcasts can either be audio only, or audio-visual (i.e., video).
  2. Benefits of Podcasting - Podcasting provides you and your students with a variety of unique benefits. 
    • Low cost - while a high quality microphone and webcam (if you're using video) are ideal (, you can definitely record content with the device's built-in recorders.
    • Guest Speakers - you can invite guests into your course by way of a podcast recording
    • Flexibility of Structure - since a podcast can exist with 1 single person, you can choose when and if you'd like to include guests.
    • Mobile listening - students can listen to your content while they are "on the go", without the need to refer to visual materials that are present in a lecture video. If your podcast contains a lot of visual aids by way of video, it's not so mobile friendly (something to keep in mind).
    • Generating new ideas -  the conversational nature of podcasts creates opportunities to come up with new ideas around the topics that are being discussed.
    • Asynchronous learning - students can choose when they'd like to engage with your content as opposed having to "tune in" at a specific time
    • Active learning activities - students can learn by harnessing their knowledge on a given topic and creating their own podcast.

You can learn more about the various reasons to include podcasting in your course/s via The Why and How of Using Podcasts in Education.

2. Plan your podcast

  1. Choose a medium - An important question to ask yourself when creating your podcast is if you want it to be a video based project, or an audio only project. If your podcast will reference visual materials, it's probably best to work with video. The article Should Your Podcast Be Audio or Video? provides a great summary of the advantages and disadvantages of either approach.
  2. Develop your script template - Unlike a lecture (or other) video, a podcast script can be a lot less formal. This is because a podcast is typically more conversational and does not have to be aligned with visuals. What is key about developing your script is to develop a routine. The best (most popular) podcast follows a consistent format for each episode. This consistency will be appreciated by your students and will help them follow along with you.
  3. Pick your music - Since you are likely only working with audio, you might choose to layer in some music and sound effects. This does not have to be fancy; less is often more. Using music can help create a unique personality for your podcast. Not only is this pleasing to the ear (if selected well), but it helps to break up your content so that your audience is not only hearing speech for the entire duration. You can start by selecting:
    • Intro Music - Think of the intro music as a brief audio signature of your podcast. You'll want to use something that is between 5-7 seconds (nothing longer than 10 seconds)! Once your audience listens to a few episodes, they'll associate the intro music with the start of your podcast. 
    • Transitional music - this can be used to help delineate different portions of the podcast. Like intro music, these portions of music should be very brief. 
    • Outro Music - this can occur to denote the end of your podcast. While your outro music can be a completely different piece of music than your intro music, to keep things uniform, and simple, you may want to have it the same as your intro music.   
  4. Pick your sound effects - When placed correctly, sound effects are a great addition to a podcast. They can be used in a variety of ways that you see fit. You might pick a sound effect to complement your regular segments. For example, if you repeat something important, maybe you can add in something that indicates this for your students.

Looking for a podcast tip template? How To Write A Podcast Script contains a great example of a podcast script template as we as some general tips to consider when getting started with scripting.

2.1. Music and Sound Effect Resources

Music
 Sound Effects

Always check the licensing information on the websites where you are finding music and/or sound effects as this will outline important details (e.g., proper use, payment, etc.).

3. Choose and set up your microphone

  1. See the guide on selecting your hardware for a variety of microphone options at different price points.
  2. Set up your microphone (and test it). Get the best audio quality possible by following the steps in setting up your physical space.

4. Pick your recording style

4.1. Record your content "in-person"

This type of recording configuration involves having the host/s and guest/s in the same physical space. As you can imagine, this setup has the potential to produce the best quality audio, as you have more control over capturing the audio (i.e., as opposed to recording remotely, where the audio sources are being recorded via the Internet).

Recording your podcast live? Podcast Equipment: What Do I Need, & Why Do I Need It? provides a great overview of the various recording and equipment requirements to record a podcast live in the same physical location.

4.2. Record your content remotely

4.2.1. Choose your webinar platform

If you're recording your podcast remotely, you'll need to first determine which webinar tool will work best for your needs. To help you decide, please see our guide Which webinar tool should I use (and when)? for an overview of the commonly used platforms.

Once you have decided on a webinar tool, be sure to familiarize yourself with the webinar's interface and functionality so that you're well aware of:

  1. How to record sessions
  2. Where your recorded sessions will be stored
  3. General use (e.g., creating meetings, configuring the audio-visual inputs)

4.2.2. Start your remote recording session

After you've explored the webinar tool of your choice and are confident with how it works, you can begin the process of remotely recording your podcast.

To begin, it's a good idea to share any relevant resources that you think the guest may find useful. You may consider having them review the audio guidelines that are presented in Setting up your physical space before the scheduled recording. This will help ensure that they have optimized their recording setup for the scheduled session.

  1. Create a meeting room link for your podcast.
  2. Share the link with your guest.
  3. Test the quality. Determine if the quality of your guest's audio/video (as well as yours) is suitable for a recording. If there are issues, we'd recommend troubleshooting using the following guides:
  4. Select RECORD. When you're ready to get started, remember to select the record function. Depending on the platform you're using, you may be able to set it up so that your session auto-records. In any case, be sure that you are recording when you need to be recording!

If your recorded file contains both video and audio and you only need the audio, you can separate it from the video by processing the original file in Davinci Resolve. Please see Davinci Resolve: How to Export Audio and Choose Your Settings for a guided tutorial on how this process works. You can download Davinci Resolve for free via their website.

5. Edit your content

5.1. What to edit

Once your podcast recording session is complete you will need to edit your content so that it is ready to be shared with the world. While you'll still need to sift through your content, you can use the script that you created to help guide you through your editing decisions.

The editing process will allow you to:

  • remove and/or add content
  • adjust sound levels
  • reduce noise in audio tracks

While the amount of editing will differ for each podcast, you should at the very least be cleaning up the beginning and end of your recordings as these portions can sometimes contain unwanted content (e.g., banter, equipment adjustment noise). The article Podcast Editing: The Ultimate Guide provides a nice overview of a variety of approaches with regards to editing.

5.2. Editing platforms

The type of software platform that you choose to edit your content will depend on whether you are working solely with audio, or if you're also using video.

Audio only podcasts

Audio & Video podcasts

6. Distribute your final work

Once your podcast is edited and complete, you can share it as you see fit. It's important to note that MS Stream does not accept files that are audio only (i.e., it only accepts video files). Please see the sharing options below to determine which is most appropriate for your needs:

6.1. Audio only podcasts

  1. MyMedia

Please note that MyMedia does not generate caption files. If you'd like to use the platform and have captions for your listeners you can generate them using MS Stream as outlined in our guide How do I add automatic captions for MyMedia videos?

6.2. Audio & Video podcasts

  1. MyMedia
  2. MS Stream
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