Over the last month, basically since I published this post, I have received a bunch of emails from teachers asking about ways to publish their audio recordings/ podcasts. Here are the methods and platforms that I’ve been recommending.
Publishing your podcast through iTunes will probably give it the best opportunity to reach a large audience. People are familiar with the process of subscribing to podcasts through iTunes which will help you help them subscribe to your podcast. The drawback to using iTunes to publish your podcast is that the set-up process is confusing the first time you do it. WordPress can make the process a little easier. But if you’re only publishing occasionally or only looking to share your audio recordings with a specific audience (let’s say students, their parents, and perhaps another classroom or two) then you might be better served by using a simpler method of publishing your audio recordings.
AudioBoom and SoundCloud both offer options to upload recordings made and saved on your computer even if those recordings weren’t made using their services. Both offer the option to create a channel to which people can subscribe. Both offer the option to embed your recordings into blog posts and webpages. And both services allow you to upload a picture to accompany your recordings. AudioBoom limits each recording to ten minutes. SoundCloud doesn’t limit your individual recording lengths, but does limit you to two hours of total time before you have to upgrade your plan or delete old recordings.
Google Classroom and or Google Drive are options if you’re just concerned with sharing audio recordings with a specific audience. Google Classroom will limit your sharing to members of your class while Google Drive could open your sharing options to a larger audience. Create a public Google Drive folder and upload your recordings to it. From there your audience could download the recordings to listen to on their laptops.
Dropbox or Box. Both services will allow you to host audio files. Like Google Drive, you could use Box or Dropbox to create a public folder in which you make your audio files available. Place a link to folder in a prominent place on your classroom blog so that people visiting your blog can easily find your audio files.
