Group Project Podcast: Competitor/Complimentary

Our group project is to produce a series of podcast about the MCDM program.  This will include interviews with student that will share their experiences in the program and how this program has helped them in their professional careers and current projects about digital media.

One podcast that can serve as both competitor and complimentary is Mobil Learning and iTunes U: Think Outside the Classroom. This podcast offers podcasting programs with educational material that can influence the desicion of a potential student about what university to go to for higher education.  However, these podcasts don’t offer any information about a particular program only about a specific learning subject.  Our podcast will offer both, program information and current learning subjects.  This podcast can be complementary in terms of providing podcasts that increase the learning process using audio.

Individual Podcasting: Competitors/Complementary

Producing a podcast program using three of my children short stories. These stories will include especial sounds effects to enhance the podcast. The stories will be recorder in a story-telling model using my voice. There is a possibility to make these podcast available in Spanish if time permits it. Each story will be a separate podcast. The three podcast can be part of my new website “El Mundo Loco de Rubi” (Rubi’s Crazy World) where it will be about podcast, vodcast and writing content made by me. Other places can be in my blog Vision Latina, places where I can do some advertising can be Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Seattle Great City Blog, and by e-mail (friends and family).

List of stories:

The Auracan Forest (Landes: creatures with magic powers who guard the well being of the humans)

Raca (A cave boy that travel to the future through a magic cave and arrives to New York on a Halloween day)

Miracle in the Forrest (Animals are mistreated by humans and when humans are in danger, the animals have to choose to help them or let them die)

Complementary Podcasts: Just One More Book This is a website that does children book reviews by podcast.  I chose this podcast because is a local podcast and because it can be complementary to my podcast stories since they do reviews, they can do reviews of my podcast or other children stories podcast available so that parents can have filter sources for the stories they choose for their children.

Competitors/Podcasts:

Storynory They offer classic and original children stories in MP3 in English, they can be a competitor, but they can also be a complementary since they don’t offer their content in Spanish.

The Fairy Tale Lady This is a podcast that focuses on fairy tales and it is done in episodes.  This can be a competitor, however, this can also be a complementary since they don’t offer short stories in Spanish.

Overall was very difficult to find podcasts in this genre, which can shows that there is a potential market in children short stories through podcast or vodcast.

Class Reflection Week 4

During this class we learned about the art of interviewing. This is very important in terms of a good program/interview outcome.  In podcasting, it is very important to have good interviewing skills, not only to know how to make and ask questions.

For editing purposes it is imperative not to make any sounds while the other person is talking, including expressions like mmmjh or hah. Plus this does not sound right in a podcast.

It is also important to do some research about who we are interviewing, so that we have enough information that will help us to create good questions.  It is very important to avoid closed ended questions like Did you enjoy the party last night? Here the person will response yes or no, but if you ask instead, What do you think about the party last night? then you open the door for a variety of answers with more information for the listener.

One good tip is to be a good listener, becuase this will lead you to more good questions!

Summary of Podcast and Blog

Summary of a Podcast:

It has been a great learning experience to follow the Grammar Girl podcast. The Grammar Girl’s podcasts have helped me tremendously in the improvement of my English grammar skills (Spanish is my first language). The way that she introduces the topics and the examples she provides to support them are very helpful in my learning experience. For example before I listened to her podcast programs, I used to think that all abbreviations were the same, but they are very different.

Acronyms and initializms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms or initializms. All acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms like in Oct. or Dr. which are abbreviations, but they are not acronyms.

One way to differentiate acronyms from initializms is that acronyms can be pronounced as a word like in N.A.S.A. but in the case of F.B.I. that is not pronounced as a word, therefore is not an acronym, it is an initializm.

Summary of Blog:

This blog has articles about current events that have to do with digital media tools and podcasting (vodcasting for video). The latest vodcast really caught my attention and I have to confess, I was part of the game.

On April 14, Ashton Kutcher started a Twitter race against CNN. The purpose was to show CNN that he could reach up to one million followers in Twitter (micro-blog with a 140 space character). He made a home video look alike in which he explained that one of the reasons why he was doing that was to prove to CNN that now, it is not necessary to be a part of a big network to reach a large audience. He also mentioned that CNN invited him to one of the programs and the reason was only to increase the number of audience of CNN, so he decided to show them that he could reach a large audience by using Twitter. In the video Ashton receives a phone call from one of his collaborators and is informed that he has close to nine hundred thousand followers.

This is the part in which I became a participant; I think that it is important for the big networks to get the concept of two way communication and to forget their old business one way communication. They need to listen to “us” the audience, so I took 45 seconds of life to go to Twitter, look Ashton Twitter’s account up and click on follow.

Podcasting Resources

This is a site that provides tips and tutorial that cover most of the steps you need to start making a podcast.

How to Podcast

If you interested in continuing your formal education you can also find many educational podcasting programs from universities like Stanford University and more with  Mobile Learning.

Idea for Final Individual Podcast Project

A series of six children shortstories podcast program.  These stories will include especial sounds effects to enhance the podcast. The stories will be recorder in a story-telling model. List of stories:

The Auracan Forest (Landes: creatures with magic powers who guard the well being of the humans)

Raca (A cave boy that travel to the future through a magic cave and arrives to New York on a Halloween day)

Miracle in the Forrest (Animal are mistreated by humans and when humans are in danger, the animals have choice to help them or let them die)

The Boy and the Lion (A baby lion is saved by a little boy and years later the lion returns the favor)

Enchanted (A princess is turn in to a snake by a witch, a prince must take her to a crosswalk outside of the Forrest to break the spell, many filed)

Tano in Mexico City (An American mouse detective is assigned to find a lost mouse in Mexico City, he meets a Mexican detective, should Tano trust him or work on his own)

These stories are subject to change if necessary.

Class Reflection Week 3

During this class we learn the process of encoding and decoding.  In regular communication we transmit an idea (encoding) we chose the right words and the structure of our sentences so that others can receive our idea (decoding) our message. In this case our voices are moving in real time using continue sound waves.   In transmitting idea/message through podcasting in this digital era, it works similarly, first we encode our message into digital using a digital recorder devise, then we need an encoder to hear/transmit that idea/message like iTune, iPod, etc. We need to understand this process in order to understand how to correctly make a podcast and how we can listen to it.
In addition, is very important that if we are making a podcast, that we have an outline to follow.  It is important not to fully script the message, because it could become a reading message. Podcast should be done in a human voice, let the listeners hear your voice, your passion about the subject etc.

Sounds For Podcasting

We learned that ambient sounds can be a very important part of podcasting as much as music.  Does this means that you have to produce your own sounds? Maybe, but there is a source for free download sounds website that you can use for your podcasting projects: Freesound

This is a great resource put together by the Music Technology Group in Spain.

Class Reflection Week 2

Before this class, I used to think that podcasting was just a process of recording, but now I know that it goes beyond that. It is a complete piece of art that needs management, effort and time.

Telling a story for the ear only is very different than telling a story using the eye and the ear. During our second class, we learned many of the important aspects of a story of the ear:

Punctuation between the sentences is very important. Punctuation provides clues for the readers (just like a script for actors)

Clear speech, culturally appropriate, age relevance (use the right words).

Music, sounds and natural sounds are very important as well. They provide life to the podcast.

It is also very important to have a very engaging beginning so that people will continue to listen to the rest of the content in the podcast.

Motivate and inspired your audience is also very important.

Side Note: Podcasting can be use for many purposes: interviews, education, marketing, storytelling, informational announcements etc.

Podcast Project Sample