Podcasting Day 1

DAY 1: Hosting and Planning (Sample Lesson Plan) 

Objectives: 

  • Know what a podcast is
  • Know different types of podcasts and episodes
  • Brainstorm names/content/etc for personal podcast
  • What a host, RSS feed is and how to distribute an RSS feed
  • Differences between hosting and distributing
  • Good/easy/cheap hosts
  • Spotify for Podcasters
    • How to write a description and change the cover art
  • Write a brief intro for their podcast

 

*When you email them a reminder, make sure to email them about coming with some podcast ideas of their own*

 

Intro *5 Min* 

  • Prayer, get know question
  • Make sure to gather information about previous skill level, goals, what they want to learn, etc 
  • Sample question: what’s their favorite podcast? 
  • Today is about getting ready to podcast! 

 

What are podcasts? *5 min*

  • Q: what would you say are the characteristics of a podcast?
  • Primarily audio based, syndicated so it can show up in a feed
  • Q: what are the benefits of podcasting over other types of content (YouTube, blog, Instagram, etc)
  • Single host, cohosts, interview, story or narrative (single or multiple voices, high or low production), panel, news

 

Activity (3 min): Plan the name, genre, and format of your show

  • Have your co-teacher hand out the papers and pens

Outlining Your Podcast *5 min*

  • Q: Let’s outline a podcast together, what types of sections or segments are in a podcast?
  • Often: Intro, short segment, long segment, Outro (may also say things like music, sponsors, audience questions/feedback/reviews
  • Outlining vs Scripting vs Adlib
  • Q: Share examples of podcasts that you like that use some of these different formats. What is successful in which situations? 

 

Activity: *3 min* 

  • Write a brief intro to your hypothetical podcast (Ex: Ever wanted to know more about Photoshop? How about Premiere Pro? Ever heard of Davinci Resolve? Here at the Software Training Podcast, your host NAME will take you through some of our favorite softwares, with common questions answered and lots of jokes made. Join us for the Software Training Podcast)

Hosting your Podcast: *5 min*

What is hosting? 

  • Hosts and distributors
  • A host saves audio files and gives you an RSS feed, turning mp3s into a podcast
  • Q: How is a distributor different?
  • Spotify for Podcasters is a host (saves your episodes and gives you an RSS feed) but ALSO a distributor (sends your podcast to Spotify)

 

What is an RSS feed? 

  • RSS feeds are just information sent out that keeps things very simple for computers to understand
  • A good video about RSS feeds
  • RSS reader converts simple computer text into articles, content, links, even podcasts!
  • For blogs, it can be a link back to the full article, etc.
  • This is basically just how distributors get your podcasts.
  • Spotify for Podcasters gives you an RSS feed automatically.
  • To get your podcast onto Apple’s distribution stuff (that’s how a lot of things get their RSS feeds, e.g. google) 
  • Go to itunes connect
  • Literally button that says “Add a show with an RSS feed”
  • A few more questions about the nature of your podcast
  • Submitted for review (hours to a few days)
  • You’re in!
  • WORKFLOW
    • You make an episode,
    • Upload to a host
    • They distribute it to all these places

What are some hosts to consider? 

A few you could mention:

  • Libsyn (paid)
  • PodBean
  • Captivate (paid)
  • Audioboom
  • RSS.com
  • Spotify for Podcasters
  • What we use
  • Easy, everything’s in house

Wide range of prices and perks

  • Libsyn goes from $5/month to $150/month

 

Spotify for Podcasters: 

  • We are going to use a program called Spotify for Podcasters to record and edit in this class. This is not because it is the best, but because it is easy and free. We will discuss other options you can also use later
  • Setup account
  • Follow Along: Go to podcasters.spotify.com, choose sign up, put in your information make sure you can access the email account as you will need to click the confirmation email.
  • Recording
  • Click “let’s do it”
  • From “Create Your Episode” choose “Record”
  • Choose your microphone and start recording
  • Note the web browser can only record for 30 minutes
  • Click + to add the recording to your episode, then choose save episode
  • add a title and description and choose “save as draft”

 

Conclusion: 

  • Next time, we’ll be recording in the studios!