TechKnowledge 2011 – Mission Possible

TechKnowledge 2011Your ‘mission possible’ today is to create a short learning podcast that features:

  1. An intro (that I provide)
  2. An opening piece of commentary (you’ll write and record)
  3. Three short interviews (you’ll conduct and edit 1 interview and I’ll provide 2)
  4. A closing piece of commentary (you’ll write and record)
  5. An outro (I’ll provide this too)

Remember – the pre-requisite knowledge for this session as outlined in your program guide is knowing how to record and edit audio using Audacity.  If you don’t know how to do this, you are welcome to attend this session and we will make every attempt to help you.  However, we can’t guarantee you’ll attain all the learning objectives.

Your Topic

Your company is going through a restructure.  The restructure involves a substantial number of layoffs because a major division in your company is being outsourced to the Philippines.

Not surprisingly, morale has hit rock bottom.  Managers are struggling to keep staff motivated.  What can they do?  This podcast will feature an interview with three experts on how to motivate staff in hard times.

You’re going to conduct one of these interviews today.  (Due to time constraints, I have recorded the other two interviews for you to use.)  Once you have recorded that interview, you will edit it and then make a complete podcast package that features your interview, my interviews, an intro & outro sequence plus some commentary from you.  Sounds fun, huh?

You need to download the 2 interviews I recorded and edited for you, plus the intro and outro sequence.   You can download these simply by right-clicking on the links below and saving the target on your desktop.  I suggest you create a folder for these downloads plus your own work.

How to PodcastWorkflow

It can be difficult to know where to start.  Here’s what I suggest.

  1. (5 mins) Create a folder on your desktop and download the following audio files and save in that folder:
    1. Intro (RIGHT CLICK HERE, and “save target as” and save in folder)
    2. Outro  (RIGHT CLICK HERE, and “save target as” and save in folder)
    3. Interview 1 (RIGHT CLICK HERE, and “save target as” and save in folder)
    4. Interview 2 (RIGHT CLICK HERE, and “save target as” and save in folder)
  2. (15 – 20 mins) Record and edit your interview.  (Keep it short – maybe 2 minutes max)  Export the final result as a WAV file into the folder you created on the desktop
  3. (5 – 10 mins) Write your two commentary scripts.  Record each one in Audacity and export as a WAV file into your folder on the desktop
  4. (2 – 3 mins mins) Import all audio files into Audacity and position them on the time-line to create a package
  5. (2 – 3 mins) Export your complete package as a WAV (or MP3)