Escutalizando: How to Create Your Own Accessible and Collaborative Podcast

This project was originated from an Assistive Technology session at our Makerspace. We had blind and sighted people working together to solve the following problem: how can we find ways to make culture more accessible?

Each group came up with a different answer to that same question.

This instructable is the result of the work of the participants Claudenir, Matheus, Luiza and Ana Cecília, with the help of the facilitators Rodrigo and Victor.

Escutalizando is a collaborative podcast for the students of CIL 2, a language school which has students who are blind and sighted. The idea of a podcast was conceived because it is a format that every student can consume and produce. This way, each person or group could submit their own podcast episode to this platform, discussing anything they wanted to share, from opinions, reviews, debates, stories and more.

In order to put the project up and running, the participants created many tools, pieces of art and recorded some audio material. This creation process is the core of this instructable, so other people could be inspired by this initiative.

Step 1: Branding

We started with the simplest decision, but sometimes the most important: the name. Each participant in the group put different names on post-it notes, then we cast a vote.

The winner was "Escutalizando" which is a mix of two Portuguese words: "escutar"(listen) and "visualizar"(see, visualize). It symbolises the feeling you have when you are listening to something, while seeing it in your head.

Then, we came up with the logo. The microphone was an obvious, but stylish choice, so we went with that idea.

With this out of the way, we could go to the next step and start thinking about the content itself.

Step 2: Choosing Platforms

Considering it should be an open platform, we needed to choose where it would be best to publish and advertise it.

For the podcast distribution, while Spotify is an excellent choice in terms of audio streaming, you need to pay to have all its functionalities. Therefore, we chose to use YouTube, for it is totally free to publish and everyone can easily find the channel and the episodes.

For the advertisement, we created an Instagram account where we would post each time a new episode would air and also to suggest different themes that the students could talk about.

In the end, we had our social media accounts done:

Youtube: Escutalizando

Instagram: Escutalizando_

Step 3: Audio Recording and Publishing

Before creating the first episode, we first recorded a small track, calling all folks to participate.

It is important to create this kind of content when you want other people to join in.

Check out this track (Portuguese):

We created a cover image and posted it to YouTube. After doing that, we managed to record out first episode.

The episode is not yet uploaded to YouTube, but you can check it out here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WVw1V5uBS4GdYqL4p...

Then, we had all the recorded material we needed at the time.

Step 4: Escutalizando Awards!

We came up with a strategy to bring more people to collaborate: an award!

The idea is to give a trophy each month for the most listened podcast, or the most discussed one etc.

This way, people would be more compelled to join and create more and more content!

The trophy was made in lasercut 3mm MDF. The files for the trophy are available to download in this section.

Step 5: Plans for the Future

For the next weeks, the participants are encouraged to talk to their fellow students and start this project at the school environment.

We wish that it helps all students to create awesome content, as well as making them talk about and consume culture in more ways than before.