Student Podcasting Questions & Suggestions

Lyndon Domsten, Instructional Technology Specialist in Odessa, Texas, wrote to me, "I've actually written a grant with your Our City Podcast project as the center piece." That's a great idea! Our City makes for a great first podcast creation experience. Lyn is new to podcasting and has questions about it:

We are very interested in participating in an Our City Podcast project. We (magnet class of 4th, 5th, 6th grade students) are learning how to podcast and are using Audacity for Windows for recording voice and integrating sound. You're probably thinking it's too bad I'm not using a Mac but our district uses only Windows machines.

GarageBand's advantage is that it is slightly easier to use than Audacity and that it has its own jingles, musical loops, and sound effects. Audacity on Windows is a fine program. You'll just have to seek out your own copyright-friendly music and sound effects that you can import into Audacity.

Nevertheless, we are needing guidance in creating our first podcast. On our website, I have been teaching kids how to make MP3 files to upload to our site. Can you tell me what RSS is exactly and how it fits into the process of podcasting?

Here's my definition of a podcast: A series of audio or video on the Web that can be cataloged and automatically downloaded. Putting MP3 files online could satisfy the first part of that definition. However, just linking to an MP3 file on your site will not allow users to automatically download the new files in a program like iTunes. In addition, MP3 files online cannot be catalogued in directories like iTunes, Podcast Pickle, and Educational Podcasting. Being listed in directories is how much of your audience will find your podcast. An RSS (a.k.a. Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) feed is necessary to be listed in those directories and essential for the MP3s to be automatically downloaded when new ones are posted.

A podcast has three parts: the MP3 file (or other media file), a webpage, and a feed. Posting just the first two online will probably reach much of your intended audience. While just a webpage linking to an MP3 file is not technically a podcast, I know many teachers who do call this podcasting. Just because it lacks an RSS feed doesn't mean that the activity lacks educational merit. However, we should strive to use proper vocabulary whenever we can.

We are going to work on an Our City script and record using Audacity. Can you offer any advice on that process.

I've recently written about the importance of listening to previous episodes before beginning the preproduction phase. Whether it's for Our City or for another podcast, analyzing example episodes (both good and not-so-good) help students make their own podcast better. Preproduction will take the most time--that's ok because it's the production phase where students are doing the most learning.

I've tried student podcasting with scripts and without them. My advice: have students script everything they will say and have them practice, practice, practice. The recording process will go more quickly with fewer mistakes. When recording, I suggest using a headset USB microphone. Students tend to be fidgety when they record. Be sure that students don't touch the headset, mic, or cord. Providing a stress ball helps students put that energy in places other than cord-twisting and paper-shuffling.

I find it much easier to edit out mistakes as students are recording than to go back to fix them later. Audacity has a quirk that when you stop recording and resume, the new recording appears in a separate track. This does not happen when you pause recording. However, pausing doesn't allow you to edit the audio. I like to keep the audio tracks organized--one track per segment. So when a segment is broken into multiple tracks because I've stopped and started recording a few times, I Quick Mix the tracks into one. Do this by highlighting the tracks you wish to combine and then choose Project > Quick Mix. This will help your Audacity project be a little more organized and manageable.

Your first episode will take you a long time to edit as you get used to the tools. In the future, editing takes less and less time. Before you exported your edited audio to an MP3, I suggest exporting as a WAV file from Audacity. Then use The Levelator. It's free software Macintosh and Windows. You just drop that exported WAV file onto The Levelator's window and it will level out the sound. That means that loud voices will be toned down and soft voice will be made louder. This is important for a podcast when you have many different speakers--all of whom speak with different volumes. The Levelator will output a WAV file. You can important that into Audacity or iTunes and then export it as an MP3.

When we are finished with the final MP3 product, what is our next step....do we upload it to your site so you can post it? Do we send you pictures as well? The Our City Podcast we are creating isn't something I'm sure we will update on a regular basis but when we send it to you how does that affect the overall distribution of the file. Are we subscribing to an RSS feeder?

The beauty of Our City Podcast is that I take care of the posting. I host the MP3 file and I maintain the RSS feed. You just send me the MP3 file. I prefer to receive the MP3 files through the free service YouSentIt.com since it is a large file. In an email, send me up to five photos and a paragraph about the episode. See the pages for previous episodes so you can see what information is included. Also send any web links you want included on the page for your episode. Don't forget to include a catchy title that uses alliteration for your city. Again, see previous episode for examples like Outstanding Omaha and Lovely Lexington.

Our City episodes aren't meant to be updated. You contribute one episode and that's the end of your involvement. You can of course subscribe to the podcast so your receive new episodes as they are added.

Lastly, can you offer application ideas on how podcasting can be used on the elementary level?

Educational podcasting offers many possibilities! I think that an easy way to start your own podcast is with book reviews. Each episode could contain a review or two by students. Remember, a podcast is a series of episodes. If you plan just one episode, no one really needs to subscribe to it. Read my blog post Podcasting Notes about a presentation by Dan Schmidt. He's the author of Kidcast: Podcasting in the Classroom. I wrote about many of the innovative ideas for podcast formats and topics he shared in his video podcast.

Lyn, best of luck with podcasting! Once you get past the technical mumbo-jumbo you'll find that podcasting is really enjoyable and not as techie as it first sounds. It's more about communication than feeds, MP3s, microphones, and audio levels.

Our City Podcast: Before Preproduction

I am working with two schools in USVI that have Palm handhelds for student use. Seventh graders at Moravian School are working on a St. Thomas episode of Our City Podcast. Our City is a great way to introduce podcasting. There are plenty of example episodes, the host/segment format is effective, and creation resources are available.

Before beginning preproduction on their St. Thomas episode, students are listening to existing episodes. We started with Outstanding Omaha. Not only could the seventh graders learn about the place I call home, but they could follow along and refer back to the script in eReader on their handhelds (a printable PDF format is also available). The class discussed what they learned about Omaha and what they noticed about the episode's sound, organization, and content.

Students are now in the process of listening to two of the nearly 30 episodes on their handhelds. I have 25 Multimedia Cards (cheap versions of SD cards) to which I copied random episodes of Our City Podcast. Each card is only 32MB so I could only fit three episodes per card. Nowadays you can get 1GB SD cards for pretty cheap, and 1GB can store all episodes with lots of memory to spare. I required students to choose two of the three episodes on their cards to listen to.

RealPlayer for Palm (free) is loaded on each handheld. RealPlayer can play MP3 files in the background while students work in other programs. I had students listen for certain information and type responses into a word processing document on their handhelds. I gave them a choice of answering two of these questions:

• List two things that the two cities have in common.
• List three things that are very different about the cities.
• Decide which city you would rather visit. Explain why.
• Decide which city you would like to live in. Tell why.
• Which podcaster would make a good friend for you? Tell why.

I bought 97¢ earbuds from WalMart for students to use with their handhelds. Headphones are necessary when students are listening to 30 different recordings at once. You can't beat the under $1 price tag.

The handhelds also have Plucker (free). Plucker enables you to put websites on handheld devices. I made a simple HTML document that links to the Wikipedia entries for each Our City episode. I used Plucker on my desktop to turn that into a file that can be read using Plucker (or FlingIt) on the handhelds. I do wish the school's handhelds had Wi-Fi. I could then just have students points their browsers to Wikipedia (or mobile-friendly versions like Wapedia.mobi). So, another part of the assignment for students was to find a fact about a city that was left out of that city's episode. Students also looked for any differently-reported facts between the podcast and Wikipedia. If there is a difference, it's an opportunity to explore which source is correct.

Although the students had responses to prepare as they listened, their main purpose for listening was to help them produce the very best episode possible. Analyzing other episodes is a great way to know what to do (and what now to do) in their own episode. The seventh graders are confident that they can do a great job. They are excited to educate their listeners about their island paradise. Subscribe to Our City Podcast so that you receive the St. Thomas episode when it debuts next month.

Podcast Encoding Settings

MP3 is not the only format for digital audio. There's AAC, Ogg, WAV, WMA, AIFF, and lots more.

MP3 is the most popular format for audio podcasts. It makes for a fairly small file size and is compatible with all web browsers and portable audio players. AAC is a similar format championed by Apple and iTunes. AAC produces higher quality sound at the same files size as MP3. Additionally, AAC allows for chapter markers, changing artwork, and hyperlinks. Unfortunately, AAC encoded audio is not able to be played as universally as MP3.GarageBand 3 (part of iLife '06 suite of software), Macintosh software for creating music and podcasts, allows for exporting as AAC but not MP3. Of course other programs like iTunes could be used to convert the AAC file to MP3. That extra step is an inconvenience for those who want to publish their podcast as an MP3.Apple's new GarageBand '08 (version 4 and part iLife '08), has some improvements for podcasters. One of them is the ability to export directly to MP3. By clicking Export Podcast to Disk... from GarageBand's Share menu, podcasters can choose to compress using either AAC Encoder or MP3 Encoder. If your podcast is not enhanced with the extra features of AAC, you might as well use the more compatible MP3 format.

For both the AAC and MP3 encoders, GarageBand offers four preset compression settings: Mono, Spoken, Musical, and Higher Quality.

Below is the information GarageBand displays when selecting the various MP3 settings. I've included the size of a sample podcast for comparison. Notice that a sound file in the Higher Quality Encoder setting is six times larger than the same file exported using Mono Encoder.

Mono Optimized for spoken podcasts. Produces small file size which download fast. 32kbps, mono, optimized for voice. Size: 2.9MB	Spoken Optimized for spoken podcasts. Produces small file size which downloads fast. 64kbps, stereo, optimized for voice. 5.9MB
Musical Ideal for podcasts with voice and music. Download times are moderate. 128kbps, stereo, optimized for music and complex audio. Size: 11.7MB	Higher Quality Ideal for podcasts where music is the focus and even higher quality is desired. 192kbps, stereo, optimized for music and complex audio. Size: 17.6MB.

Shouldn't everyone choose the highest quality sound they can get? Well, the higher the quality the large the file size. Larger file sizes take longer to download and take up valuable megabytes on file servers, in iTunes, and on portable players. If you use a hosting service with limits on storage and bandwidth, larger episode files might use up your monthly allotment.

GarageBand's presets make a really handy reference. In fact, podcasters using Audacity and other recording programs could use these same settings when encoding audio. You'll have to manually input the settings after choosing Preferences > File Formats. Under MP3 Export Setup, change the Bit Rate to match GarageBand's preset. For example, set the Bit Rate to 64 for a Spoken podcast.

Whatever software you use to compress your podcast's audio, I suggest exporting the same sound file with different settings. Have a listen to each one and balance sound quality with file size when settling on a compression setting.

The Audacity Preference You Need to Change

Audacity is free audio recoding, editing, and encoding software. You can combine audio from many sources, including voice recordings, audio downloaded from the Internet, and music. By choosing Import Audio from the Project menu you can add MP3, WAV, and AIFF files. Audacity is a great choice for podcasters and others who want to produce quality audio recordings.

But look out! By default, Audacity only references imported files. That means that when making an audio project, you must not move or delete the original files you imported. If you do, Audacity will have a gap in its playback. This has happened to me before. The waveforms for an imported audio segment were still displayed in Audacity's timeline; however, no audio plays in that section. It was because I thought I'd tidy up my desktop and delete the files I had already imported, thinking Audacity did not need them. I was wrong.

Luckily, Audacity has a setting you can change so that instead of referencing imported files, it will copy the imported files into the master project file. That way if you move or delete imported files, it won't make one bit of difference in your Audacity project. I suggest all Audacity users change this preference to save themselves some possible pain and suffering in the future.

Go to Preferences and choose File Formats. Choose Make a copy of the file before editing (safer). Now enjoy piece of mind that the Audacity project file will play properly after tidying up used files.

Podcast Hosting Services Compared

A less complicated way to publish your podcast is to use a podcast hosting service. Services like SolidCasts, LibSyn, and PodOmatic allow you to upload your audio file to their site through a Web browser. Then you are prompted to enter information about your podcast. Podcast hosting services then generate the news feed and a website for your podcast.

Some hosting services are free and others charge monthly or yearly fees. While a hosting service is the easiest way to publish, if the hosting service goes out of business or you stop paying the fee, your podcast will be deleted from their servers and, thus, unavailable to your listeners.

There really are many hosting service options. I've created a chart with six selected hosting companies. The chart shows if there is a free version and what you get with the paid version.

My recommendations? If you are going to pay, I suggest LibSyn (short for Liberated Syndication). It's $5 per month and you receive 100 MB per month of storage and unlimited bandwidth (downloads). This is the service I use. I like the per month model because LibSyn archives all past episodes. I probably have close to a gigabyte hosted there by now. If you are going with a free service, I recommend SolidCasts.com. SolidCasts has no advertising and they give you 100 MB free "for life." Be aware, the 100 MB limit is not monthly and means that once you fill it up, you'll have to delete old episodes to make room for new ones.

Podcasting Bits & Pieces

It's time for some podcasting tidbits.

• Dave Jobbings at the Podcasts for Educators Weblog writes about sustainability of educational podcasts. After looking at 80 podcasts listed in the Podcast Directory for Educators, Schools, and Colleges, Dave has noticed some interesting trends. The most common reason for a podcast no longer updating is that the teacher or staff member responsible for the podcast left the classroom or school for another post. Dave writes, "This would seem to underline the importance of a policy for succession planning. Whatever podcasting expertise there is within a school, some action to share this expertise more widely would seem a sensible option." Dave notes that providing professional development for other teachers and developing expertise in the students are two ways that schools can be ready for succession of podcasting educators. I would like to note that Radio WillowWeb continues to "broadcast" and it's been over a year since I left Willowdale Elementary. The school is dedicated to podcasting and Radio WillowWeb did not depend solely on my expertise.
• I am teaching one-day workshops for the Nebraska Business Development Center in Omaha. Business-types and educators are encouraged to sign-up. Check out the dates, course description, and outline for Podcasting: Communicating Your Message. You can listen to a four-minute audio recording of me talking about podcasting and about the workshop. Also, I wrote "Podcasts Deliver Free Audio & Video: Listen, Learn, and Publish Your Own" that appears on page two of the Nebraska Business Development Center's fall catalog. If you're not in Omaha, remember I make a living delivering workshops. Perhaps we can arrange something for your school district, business, or organization?
• Apple has filed to trademark their popular podcasting symbol, which you can see to the right. The purple figure surrounded by concentric circles is used by many podcasters. Because it's a trademarked image, webmasters who use the graphic may someday receive a cease and desist letter. So far Apple has not indicated that they will ask podcasters to remove images of their symbol.
• There are many options when it comes to publishing a podcast. My preferred way is to use a service like Slapcast or Libsyn. These services host the episode files, create a blog, and maintain the RSS feed. Slapcast gives you three free episodes. Libsyn has no free trial. Both cost $5 per month. An educator at a recent conference clued me in on SolidCasts.com. SolidCasts will host up to 100MB worth of episodes for free. Depending on how long your episodes are and how much compression you use, 100MB is enough for about a dozen audio files. SolidCasts says that the 100MB is free for life. However, if you have more than 100MB, you have to either delete previous episodes or pay at least $12.95 per month for one gigabyte (or more) of storage.
• Another option for podcast-publishing is GoDaddy.com. Plans start at $2.39 a month for 300MB of space. Like Slapcast and LibSyn, GoDaddy hosts the episode files, creates a blog, and maintains the RSS feed.
• Check out the free How to Podcast tutorial. There are videos about using Audacity.

That's your podcasting news for now. Stay tuned for future updates.

Soundsnap: Free Audio for Podcasters

Soundsnap is a new place to find sound effects and musical loops. It's like YouTube for sounds because users can download sounds and upload their own--all for free. Everything uploaded to Soundsnap is copyright-friendly for podcasters to use. Here's how Soundsnap describes itself:

Soundsnap is the best platform to find and share free sound effects and loops- legally. It is a collection of original sounds made or recorded by its users, and not songs or sound FX found on commercial libraries or sample CD's.

It was originally started by a small group of sound people from all over the world. Our common belief is that sounds and samples should be free for everyone to use in their projects, commercial or not.

Our users are a diverse mix of sound designers, sound artists, web game developers, filmmakers and music producers. Hobbyists and home video makers are welcome too.

Soundsnap is fully searchable and sounds are also categorized and tagged for browsing.

You can download an MP3 or WAV version for most files from Soundsnap. I recommend downloading WAV files to import into your podcasting projects. WAV files are usually higher quality. You'll be compressing the audio later, but it's nice to start with the best sounding audio available.

Soundsnap started with 30,000 audio files and is growing. Check it out!

Update: Soundsnap is very much like YouTube, where not all uploads are appropriate for school. It's probably not a good idea to let students loose on Soundsnap (and it's likely to be blocked at school). I suggest that educators download a whole bunch of useful audio files from Soundsnap to their hard drives and organize them into folders. Burn those folders on a CD or place them on a flash drive that is always available for when sounds are needed.

PoducateMe Podcasting Guide

Micah Ovadia from Ohio has spent more than a year working on his PoducateMe Podcasting Guide. His time was well spent, as the guide is gushing with 186+ pages of information for podcasting in education. One look at the comprehensive Table of Contents and you can see why it took a year to create.

I'm always on the look out for how people define podcasting. Here's PoducateMe's definition:

A podcast is simply a collection of individual audio episodes typically recorded and edited on a computer, encoded in the MP3 file format, then uploaded to a Web server. Users of "podcatcher" software, such as Apple's iTunes, are then able to download episodes from the server to their computer and listen to the recordings on their computers or transfer them to a media player such as an iPod. Because episodes may be listened to at any time and anywhere, a popular analogy is to think of podcasts as TiVo for radio.

I noticed that video is not addressed in the definition. PoducateMe's guide includes some references to enhanced podcasts but none for video podcasts. After reading through more of the guide, you'll understand that audio podcasting can be complicated, simply because of all of the options in hardware, software, and publishing. PoducateMe often suggests alternative solutions to what I generally recommend.

I'll share one new thing I learned from browsing through PoducateMe. I've mentioned SyncTunes before, but it's worth revisiting after reading through Micah's guide. SyncTunes is free software for Macintosh that allows you to automatically sync podcasts (and other audio files) from iTunes to devices other than iPods. What about Windows users? There's BadApple, a free plug-in for the Windows version of iTunes. It's not as slick as SyncTunes, but BadApple allows Windows users to sync iTunes content to any device that mounts as a USB storage device, like Pocket PCs and memory cards.

Another way to automatically sync podcasts to non-iPod players is to skip the use of iTunes all together. myPodder is an alternative "podcatcher" that works with the online Podcast Ready service to automatically deliver podcasts to your desktop computer and portable device. There's even a version of myPodder that runs on Windows Mobile. That means your internet-enabled Pocket PC can subscribe to and receive podcasts without ever syncing to a desktop computer!

There are plenty of other useful bits of podcasting goodness in the guide. While the entire PoducateMe Podcasting Guide can be read online free of charge, it is available as a fully printable 29 MB PDF file for an educational price of $17.95. (The online version cannot be printed and the text cannot be copied.)

Quality and Accessibility of Podcasts

Dr. Patricia Deubel wrote Podcasts: Improving Quality and Accessibility for June 2007's THE Journal. Patricia's main point is summarized at the end of the article:

We're not all professional broadcasters, but listeners and readers will better appreciate your message, if you have also considered the technical merit of your podcast when it is developed.

Patricia first tackles improving the quality of podcasts. While it's possible to record a podcast with a computer's built-in microphone, it isn't recommended. USB headset microphones work really well are cost about $30. She writes, "For higher-quality audio, professional and semi-professional equipment would be optimal." The solutions she suggests start around $200. Personally, I can tell very little difference between a $30 USB microphone recording and that made with expensive microphones.

The article then focuses on boosting the quality of content and cites the four phases of creating an episode: preproduction, recording, postproduction, and publishing. If students follow these phases, hopefully they have then created something that the audience will appreciate. However, I know there are certainly times when a less-polished podcast is acceptable. For instance, students record a "sound-seeing" tour of a museum or teachers record class discussions.

Patricia brings up an excellent point about accessibility of podcasts:

Schools are in the business of educating all learners. If the podcast is on a school Web site, or is hosted at another site and has potential for use in schools, then its text equivalent should be provided. Text equivalents help meet the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508, which require streaming media to be accessible to the deaf and hearing impaired. There are also times when individuals who can hear would benefit from text, such as when silence is required in a room and headphones are missing for listening to audio, when audio might not be available on a computer, or when the listener is in a noisy room.

I agree having a transcript for hearing impaired and other students is a good idea. It's certainly extra work to prepare a transcript, even if the podcast is read from a script. Page 3 of the article explains a couple ways to caption video podcasts--and any way you do it, it's going to take a lot of time and/or money.

Podcasts: Improving Quality and Accessibility is part 1 of a two-part series, so we can look forward to more on this topic from Dr. Patricia Deubel.

Podcasting Audience/Defining Podcasting

The Diffusion Group has released their report Podcasting Audience Continues to Grow, But Medium Poorly Defined by Marketers. Their findings include:

• 11% of U.S. adult broadband internet users (about 12 million people) listen to podcasts at least once per month.
• Among the users above, 68% use a portable player. 49% listen on a computer.
• Users listen to an average of 5.4 podcasts per month on a portable player and an average of 4.7 on a computer.
• Listeners subscribe to 4.1 different podcast feeds.
• 70% of podcast listeners use iTunes for access.
• Diffusion Group's prediction: The podcast audience will double in the next five years.
• Holding back podcasting usage:
  • Podcasting is perceived as too complex for the average consumer to use.
  • Consumers are not aware of the quantity and quality of available podcasts.
  • People have a poor comprehension of podcasting because there is a lack of understanding of the term podcast.

The group who wrote the report also published Rethinking the Definition of Podcasting. The report compares definitions of podcast. It gets a bit technical, but defining podcast is important if we're to share them with students, parents, the community, and fellow educators. I have tweaked my definition for podcasting over the years. Currently, here's the definition I share with educators:

A podcast is audio or video on the Web that can be cataloged and automatically downloaded.

I've tried to keep the definition simple and non-technical. Of course, it's the RSS feed that makes it possible for a podcast to be cataloged in places like iTunes and Yahoo! Podcasts. The feed also enables software like iTunes to check for updates and to download new files.

I have been making an effort to refer to an individual podcast audio or video file as an episode, leaving the word podcast as a collective term encompassing all of its episodes. The report addresses podcast vs. episode:

The term “podcast” may also refer to a single file or episode of the podcast series – this is similar to how the term “show” (as in television show) can refer to either the series as a whole or only a single episode.

Whatever the vocabulary, it is important that people know that an iPod is not required. In fact, some podcasters have suggested changing the word to netcast. I don't think we'll be replacing the word podcast any time soon, so we need to help others understand the term podcast and what it can do for education.

Podcast RSS Feed Options

The most technical part of podcasting is publishing the RSS feed . Without an RSS feed, you don't really have a podcast--you have audio or video on the web. Without a feed, that audio or video cannot be listed in directories or automatically downloaded using iTunes. The RSS feed is important if you wish to have people subscribe to your podcast.

Here are some of the options for making an RSS feed:

• Spend $0 if your school or district's server or web management system supports podcasting. Check with your technology folks to see what's available to you.
• Spend $5 a month for an online service like Slapcast.com, LibSyn.com, or AVmyPodcast.com. Simply set up an account, fill in the text fields, and upload your audio or video files. There are limitations for monthly uploads but they offer an unlimited number of downloads. You should note that once you stop paying the monthly fee, your podcast will no longer be available online.
• Spend about $30 for software like FeedForAll. Fill in the blanks and the software generates an RSS feed that you then upload to your own server. You must also host the audio or video on your own server.
• Spend $100 on Tool Factory Podcasting (Windows only). This is a complete solution for recording, postproduction, hosting, and publishing.
• Spend $0 by hosting your audio or video on OurMedia.org. Then use a combination of Blogger and Feedburner to publish a blog and RSS feeds. Here are the instructions.

And here's a new one I just learned about....

• Spend $0 by hosting your audio or video on your own server or OurMedia.org. Then use the free online service Poderator. Fill in the text fields with information about your podcast and the URL of your uploaded audio or video file. Poderator generates the RSS feed. but you must upload it to your own server. Each time you wish to add a new episode, first upload it to your server then log into Poderator and add a new episode using the URL of the item you just uploaded. Poderator then updates the feed so your subscribers can download the new episode. Note that each time you update the feed, you have to upload it to your server.

With any of these solutions, if you want your podcast to be available in iTunes and other directories, you must submit the URL of the RSS feed to iTunes and the web directories of your choice. Remember, you only have to submit one time. After that, iTunes and the directories periodically check the RSS feed for updates.

Edition 2 of Handhelds for Teachers & Administrators

The second edition of Handhelds for Teachers & Administrators by Tony Vincent and Janet Caughlin is now available! You might be familiar with the first edition published four years ago. Edition 2 has been completely updated and has an added 50 pages. Besides taking you step-by-step through using Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, iPods, and podcasting, the book gives dozens of examples of classroom use. In fact, the vignettes with teacher lesson idea and their insights into handheld computing is my favorite chapter. There's also a chapter with school administrators telling you all about how they use handhelds to do their jobs better.

The podcasting section is an exciting new addition to the book. It takes you through finding, subscribing, and listening to podcasts in iTunes, on an iPod, a Palm handheld, and Pocket PCs. It even has a tutorial for creating and publishing a podcast using the free Audacity software.

As with all of Janet's Workshop Books, busy educators can pick up Handhelds for Teachers & Administrators and get started right away using their handheld computers. The book's CD-ROM provides useful resources for the tutorials, lesson ideas, and podcasting. There also is this website that has all of the web links mentioned in the book.

Currently Edition 2 is not yet listed on the Tom Snyder website. Call the publisher at 800-342-0236 to order the book. You also order from K12 Handhelds here.

As a shameless promotion for the book, I made a Gizmoz animation of myself telling you about it. You can make your own Gizmoz for free by uploading a photo of yourself and then supplying text or audio.