| Podcasting |    |
General Information about Wimba Podcasting
Podcasting is Wimba's most recent feature within Blackboard. It enables instructors to record and send audio messages as Podcasts via an iPod, PDA or other MP3 player. A quick reference guide has been provided below for faculty members who wish to experiment with this technololgy.
Instructors who have questions about this technology can contact Wimba at: (866)350-4978 or at technicalsupport@wimba.com
A demo of the Wimba Podcasting feature can be found at:
http://www.wimba.com/assets/_flash/podcaster_demo.htm.
Creating a Podcast from within Blackboard:
Instructors can now create a recorded Podcast from within Blackboard. To create a new Podcast within Blackboard, do the following:
1. Log into Blackboard and select the course you would like to add the the Podcast to.
2. Select Control Panel.
3. Select one of the three options from the Content Area Section. (SyllabusCourse Documents or Assignments). Note: the Podcasting will be listed in whichever one of the three Course Content options you select.
4. From the Select Options pull down menu located in the upper right hand portion of the Blackboard screen, select the Wimba Podcasting option and click on GO.
5. An Add a Link to the Wimba Podcaster screen will appear. Type in the Name and Options for the Podcast.
6. Click Submit in the lower right corner.
7. Click OK on the Podcast Added screen.
8. You can rearrange the order of the material posted to your course content area by changing the number in the far left. The system default is to put the Podcast in the last position within the list of the content area.
Accessing a Podcast from within Blackboard
1. The Podcast will appear in whichever Blackboard content area it was created in. Select the content area where the Podcast was created (Syllabus, Course Documents or Assignments).
Note: A student will access the Podcast from one of the three course content areas on the main Blackboard course page.
2. Click on the Wimba Podcaster link listed just below the title of the Podcast you wish to access. The Podcast interface screen will be launched.
Using the Podcaster within Blackboard
Note: you will need a microphone to record a message.
Recording a new Podcast
1. To record a message click New.
2. Type a Name for your message on the Subject line of the message composition screen. You can also type a Description in the Description area.
3. When you are ready to record a message, click on the Record or Circle icon.
4. After you have finished recording your Podcast message, click Stop or Square icon. You can also press the Pause icon (two vertical lines) to mementarily pause the recording of a message.
5. If you want to re-record your audio message, simply stop recording and select the Record icon again. Click Yes on the message overwrite warning screen.
6. After you have finished recording your message, and when the audio message is ready to be posted to the board, select the Send icon (upper right part of the screen).
1. To a Podcast, highlight or select or highlight the Podcast message you wish to export from the list of previously posted Podcasts.
2. Select Export.
3. There will be two drop down menus (see below). The default for the file to export drop down menu is the Selected messages only.
In the second Export Format drop down menu, select the MP3 audio in archive (.zip) option. This will create a zipped MP3 file for your students to access. Name and save the file to a location you select.
To copy a Podcast to another course or from the same course to another semester, you must do the following:
- Save the Podcast(s) as zipped MP3 files
- Export the zipped file to your hard drive or external storage device
- Import the zipped MP3 files into your new Blackboard course
- Unzip the MP3 files.
Subscribing to Wimba Podcasts enables you to automatically get updates to Podcasts as well as access previously created Podcasts from any device that can play MP3 files.
You can use items such as iTunes as an RSS Feed Aggregator but having access to iTunes or an iPod is not required in order to access Podcasts. You can also use web sites such as Google and many others to access Podcast content.
To subscribe to a Podcast, do the following:
- select the Podcast from your course's Blackboard content area
- click on the RSS Feed link in the Subscribe box in the upper right hand corner of your Wimba Podcast screen
- Select the Subscribe to this Podcast link