Proposal - Collaborative Classics Podcast

[Latinum Institute]

I had an idea today - a collaborative Classics podcast:
How would it work?
A new account would created at Mypodcast, for a podcast called CLASSICS. Anyone who wanted to contribute to it, would be given the username and password to access the podcast for uploading material.

What would be on it?
Anything related to Latin or Greek, from any time period. Readings from classical texts in translation or in the original, or both, episodes on a topic of interest, grammar discussions, a complete mish mash, you'd upload whatever interests you. You can publish in any language as well. Classical Civilisation, neo-latin, anything.....The result could be a really interesting show.

Anyone interested? Setting it up would only take minutes.

Evan.

[Laura Gibbs]

ABSOLUTELY. I'd love a chance to do some Latin that does not fit in with the regular stuff I am doing. That would be great! :-)

[Latinum Institute]

The question is, where would be best to host it? Mypodcast has advantages - it is dead easy to use, it is free. Disadvantage, it sometimes has bandwidth issues.

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Evan, I'm willing to go along with whatever someone thinks is best for group podcasting; I don't have a good solution for the audio hosting side of things that will work for a group situation. Alternatively, if you want to tell everybody to do their own audio hosting in whatever way they prefer (their own webspace, school space, InternetArchive, etc.), then it's very easy to set up a Blogger.com group blog with multiple users - and that has the advantage of not requiring people to share a logon and password.
The question is: would it deter people from participating if they had to have already published their mp3 file somewhere before they contribute it to the group podcast? I'm guessing if we write up instructions on how to use InternetArchive as a free alternative (that's what David Clark is using, if I remember correctly), then maybe Blogger.com is the way to go.

[Latinum Institute]

Yes, I am keeping an eye on this as well. If mypodcast goes belly up, then I will transfer all my files to the internetarchive, and put Latinum on Blogger. I am waiting to see if there are more replies to this thread before I go ahead with this idea of a communal podcast.

[Laura Gibbs]

Got it, Evan - I'm worried it will be slim pickings. I think what puts people off is the actual audio recording process itself.
Do you use Audacity? I like it just fine, but I think it is intimidating to people.
I was thinking of using GarageBand just so I could learn how it works and recommend that as an option to people, but of course it is Mac-only.

[Latinum Institute]

Yes, I use Audacity. I did not find it too hard to learn how to use, but then, I enjoy mucking around with the computer, and I enjoy learning new things.
Mypodcast also provides a simple recorder, which seems to work for basic recording.
I was out in the snow today, cold, but enjoyable. School was cancelled. Might be tomorrow as well.

[Laura Gibbs]

Ah, it is warm here (school was cancelled in Oklahoma for ICE, not snow last week - nasty weather).
The availability of a simple recorder in Mypodcast might be a plus for doing that route - I don't think Audacity is really hard to use (all my Greek students learned how to use it without any problems), but it is unfamiliar, not really "like" any other software people regularly use.
Do you have a friend or colleague who would like to podcast but who is intimidated by the audio factor who could maybe try out the Mypodcast and see what they think about it...?

[Latinum Institute]

Hey there David - I was hoping others than the usual suspects would show some interest in venturing into pastures new......
Evan.

[Laura Gibbs]

Hi Evan, I find it baffling that people do not do more sharing online... and I'm guessing that will be a huge obstacle for podcasting - I just wish we could get people to blog (which is TOTALLY easy, especially compared to doing audio), but even that is slow going. I made my pitch about blogging to LatinTeach thinking some people might give it a try as a "New Year's Resolution" kind of thing, but I don't think anything came of it. Just think how AMAZING it would be if all the Latin teachers were blogging - what a great teacher's "virtual" lounge we could be sharing together online. :-)

[Latinum Institute]

Well, we do have - the Comlex, David's new project, this site, your Bestiaria sites, Textkit, Latinum, Scott's Talking Vulgar blog......apart from your sites and textkit, all the others are new.
So, we are doing pretty well, I think. I am talking about sites that provide content, not sites that talk about Latin or the Classics. There is a lot of that, 'talking/writing about it', rather than actually 'doing it' - although there is a cross over between these , so they are not truly dichotomous.
Evan.