Instructions to record your voice for your blog

1. Download Audacity
   Click FILE/Preferences: QUALITY: 44100 Hz & 32-bit float
2. Record your voice. Listen to it and delete unwanted sounds or pauses.
3. Save it: Save project as.
4. Download LAME. You can go straight here.
   
5. Save your Audacity file into a MP3 format: Export as MP3
6. Register with OURMEDIA*. Upload your audio MP3 file. You’ll get a link (URL: http://..........)
7. Write the link in your blog.
8. You can use skype to interview people over the internet and you can record it with PowerGramo. Then follow steps 6-7.
   
9. If you want a picture of a podcast icon, you can copy the HTML code. Right click on the PODCAST icon below and Save Picture As in one of your picture folders in your computer. Then you can upload it as a picture in the Add image icon above, as you would upload any picture. Once you see the picture in your post, you can highlight it and link it with the Link icon above.

AUDIO ICON HTML:

Finally, if you want to know more about it, go to Sean FitzGerald's Online Portfolio
You will find detail explanations on how to do it.

EXAMPLES

• This blog, Sydneys People Podcast is and example of podcasts incorporated onto a blog.

• My other podcasting blog, Let's Talk, which I set up for my students to communicate with Portuguese students through recorded messages, is easier for students to use at home (the recording facility doesn't work at TAFE!) once they join.

* Our media has changed a bit recently, you should download SpinXpress also. It works much better than ourmedia by itself.

Yuki: Our first student podcast!

Congratulations to Yuki. He is the first of our clasmates to have created a podcast. You can have a listen in his blog Torpedo.

He talks about himself, his work in Japan and what he likes and dislikes about Sydney. After you listen to him, ask him any questions in his blog comments. He will answer them.

This should be an incentive for all of you to try. Here are the instructions that we wrote today in class.

Gabriel: Birthday PodCard

Download the MP3 file (518 KB, o:o2:12 mins).

Listen to this birthday podcard (audio card) and write the answers in your blogs.

What's the occasion?
How many people are talking?
Who do you think they are?
Who's having a birthday?
Where is this person?
What happened with a passport?
What's the weather like?
Do you know what a webcam is?
Search the internet to find a webcam from your hometown/country.
Where is Rovereto? Find information about it.
Why should Gabe take pictures?
What should he write in his diary?
What are other names for school bag?
What is Gabe's mum telling him to do?
Is she worried about anything in particular?
What is Gabe's brother telling him he should learn? and why?
Is he serious?

This is what the Director of Languages at Gabe's school wrote about exchanges:
Going on Exchange is a courageous and very particular learning experience...students engage with language in classrooms and set off for exchange with their own personal backgrounds and attitudes and intersect with the second culture at their own stage of development. There are no right and wrong points along the spectrum- it's a journey of change.
For many of us in Australia, coming here has been like an exchange, only that it's not a temporary journey, but a more permanent one. There are different stages of change when we get to know another culture. The last ones are ones of acceptance, adaptation and integration. We no longer believe that our own culture is the only one, or the best one. We are no longer ethnocentric in our view of the world around us. We understand and recognise that there are many different values and behaviours. We can finally start looking at things from different cultural perspectives.
We can discuss this in our forum this week.

Nicole

• Meet Nicole, one of the non-teaching staff at our college.
  
  
  
  (0.98 MB, 0:04:17 mins)

Answer the following questions:
What's her job?
Does she like it?
Why?
What type of people does she have to deal with?
Where is she from?
Why did she come to Sydney?
How old was she when she came?
What does she miss?
Where would she like to live eventually?
What's wrong with Sydney, according to her?
How long does it take her to get to work?
What about the things she likes about this city?

• Now write 4 or five more questions for the last part of the interview.
• Find out where her town is and get information about it on the Internet.You can write the answers to this post in your blogs.

Miguel: Interview with a university student

Listen to this interview with a university student and answer the questions below.
Download the MP3 file (599 MB, 0:02:33 mins).

What is he studying?
What year is he doing?
What subjects has he done?
What subjects has he enjoyed the most?
Is the course a practical course?
Has he done any subjects from other degrees?
Has he got any plans to continue studying?
What are his plans for when he finishes uni?





This was recorded with an MP3 player and modified with Audacity

ESL

Rosa: Trip to Spain

This is my first podcast. In it I describe these four photos I took on my recent unplanned trip to Spain. Once you start to play it, minimise it to be able to look at the photos.

Download the MP3 file (452MB, 0:01:55 mins).


(It's a good idea to stop the music from the previous post before listening to this one)


This was recorded with Audacity

ESL

Sydney's People

Hi everyone,

I am going to introduce you to a selection of people from the great community in which we live, Sydney.

As we were discussing in our class last week, we have had students from 17 different countries in 2005. Incredible isn't it? But then again... search the net and find out the background of the residents of suburbs like Fairfield, also in Sydney, or if you live here, check your local council area annual report to learn about its cultural make-up.

We are very lucky to be able to learn about each other and enrich our experience as citizens of this globe.

Keep an eye on this blog, subscribe to its RSS and keep listening! It will help your English and it may help you undestand this city and its people a bit better.

ESL