Introduction: How to Record a Podcast From a Phone

About: I run a thinktank on Learning called The MASIE Center. We also host the Learning CONSORTIUM, a group of 200 Fortune 1000 companies exploring new models of learning.

We are recording a series of podcasts as part of our effort to extend the impact of the Learning 2005 conference. These podcasts are recordings of interviews conducted by Mark Oehlert with numerous facilitators from the conference.

The following steps will illustrate how Mark is currently recording these interviews and how he is posting those to both a blog and a Wiki. This set up is a bit more complex than the standard podcast for two reasons - to get as good an audio recroding as possible and because instead of a single person doing a podcast, Mark is actually recording interviews so we have to be able to catch both sides of the conversation.

Step 1: Gather Supplies

As mentioned in the intro, Mark is using two phones since to capture these interviews. The two lines enable us to make sure that we capture both sides of the conversation.

Our method requires the following supplies:
A phone
A phone audio recording device ( ie. the Quick Tap from JK Audio)
A Laptop
Audio recording software (any program that can record from your audio input)
AudioBlogging/ Podcasting hosting service

Step 2: Connecting Inbound Audio

Now that you have 2 phones, you need to make sure that you can capture the audio on your computer. To do that Mark is using a device called "Quick Tap" from JK Audio to tie these phone lines into one audio cable that plugs into my laptop. You can see the little Quick Tap box and the jack going into my laptop.

Step 3: Launch Audio Software to Record Conversation

You have the phones. You have them hooked to your computer. Now what? Now you need to launch whatever software you will be using to record the audio on your computer. We happen to use Sonic Foundry but there are a number of packages available for little cost. This application will not only capture the audio but will allow you adjust the recording volume and other variables that will allow you to produce better quality audio.

If possible, normalize (usually a common feature in this kind of software) the audio, this will smooth out the difference between loud and quite parts of the recording. Then you save audio as wav file (this preserves the original in a high quality format). Finally, you convert wav file to MP3 file (try to include ID3 meta data). This is done because MP3 files are so much smaller than wav files and are easier to dowload.

Step 4: Post to a Web Service

Now that you have the recorded audio on your computer, you need to make it available or accessible somehow. We use a Web service called AudioBlog (www.audioblog.com). This allows us to upload our audio and publish it to our Learning Feeds (www.learningfeeds.com) blog.

Publishing the audio to a blog allows people to subscribe to that blog as it gets new content and have that new content automatically downloaded to their computer or MP3 player.

Step 5: Podcast Shows Up on Blog

This blog, Learning Feeds (www.learningfeeds.com) is the one that we have set up to handle all of our podcasting. When we 'publish' something from the AudioBlog site - this is where it lands. Then I use the "View Source" command in my browser (you get a screen that looks like the second picture) and copy the relevant pieces out of it and paste them into the Learning Wiki.

Step 6: Podcast Is Added to Wiki

After the audio shows uo on our blog, I add it to the Learning Wiki (www.learningwiki.com).

Step 7: The End

Congratulations! You've made it through. Now you are ready to begin your career as a podcasting superstar.