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=Introduction to The Bardwell Road Center Podcast [|http://bardwellroad.podomatic.com]=

media type="custom" key="27536" Hi, I'm Geoff Taylor, teaching EFL to adults in St Clare's, a private school/college in Oxford, England.

I'm a long-time Mac user. When Apple included a podcasting section in iTunes in autumn 2005, it created an explosion of amateur audio & video publishing. With my new iPod, I quickly became a consumer of audio podcasts, and when Graham Stanley and his colleagues came along with the [|EVO Podcasting 2006 course], it was just the right catalyst to get me going in producing a podcast myself.

So began the [|Bardwell Road Centre Podcast], "the podcast for English language students by English language students at St Clare's, Oxford". See our show notes, and subscribe, or just listen online[|.] We have produced 35 episodes to date (23 February 200&), and had our one year anniversary a little while ago.

The podcast is nearly always produced by/with adult students in my main morning class, which has been the lowest level, pre-intermediate class. It's normally about 8-10 minutes long, and on a unified theme or topic.

The basic idea of the podcast was to be like a little college radio station. We would publish a magazine programme of content of most interest to the students in my class themselves and other classes in the department, also to friends and family, and then other people in the college and perhaps some people outside the college.

Hardware Software Podcasting service
 * Apple Powerbook (see my [|setup blog post])
 * Labtec Desktop Mic 534, a very cheap (only £5.63 GBP at Amazon.co.uk) mono microphone with mini connector (3.5 mm) (see my [|setup blog post])
 * Griffin iMic universal audio adapter (digitising sound card), plugs into a USB port (see my [|setup blog post])
 * For mobile recording, Griffin iTalk microphone attachment (£30 GBP from Amazon.co.uk) for my 4th generation iPod (but audio quality on 4th gen iPod very poor) (see my [|setup blog post])
 * Apple Garageband 3 (audio recording & editing) & iTunes (see my [|setup blog post])
 * [|Levelator] (Mac OS/Windows programme, freeware) (automatically levels or equalises loud/quiet sections of recorded audio, useful for interviews with more than one person)
 * LameBrain (Mac OS only, freeware) (aiff >> mp3 audio file format converting)
 * [|www.Podomatic.com] (free version)

Links
 * [|EVO Podcasting 2006 course] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/podcasting_elt/
 * [|Bardwell Road Centre Podcast] http://bardwellroad.podomatic.com
 * [|My Podcasting setup] http://geofftaylor.edublogs.org/2006/01/19/my-podcasting-setup/
 * [|Geoff's Introductory podcast] http://bardwellroad.podomatic.com/entry/2006-01-11T13_49_18-08_00
 * [|Thoughts about the Valentine's Day Episode] http://geofftaylor.edublogs.org/2006/02/10/thoughts-about-the-valentines-day-episode/

PDF files
 * [| Podcast Review Form (student activity)] http://www.gjtaylor.btinternet.co.uk/PodcastDocs/PodcastReviewForm.pdf
 * [|Student podcast - topic suggestions] http://www.gjtaylor.btinternet.co.uk/PodcastDocs/StudentPodcast-topicsuggestions.pdf
 * [| Podcast Transcription (student activity)] http://www.gjtaylor.btinternet.co.uk/PodcastDocs/PodcastTranscriptionActivity.pdf