Making a Podcast with Your iPad

Last week, I had fun making a video podcast featuring some teachers at Heritage MS. I hope to make that a regular featurecast! This blog entry is about the process I followed and the apps used. I'll add more processes or workflows as time goes by using different apps.

Here are the steps I followed:

1. Using my iPad, I snapped a few pictures--or captured the iPad screen while looking at web pages--then loaded them into the Sonic Pics iPad app.
2. Using the Sonic Pics ($2.99) iPad app, I arranged them in the order I wanted them to appear, then recorded the audio narration as I swiped through the pictures (very easy!).
3. I recorded the teachers sharing about the lessons, student feedback, and actual student product using the built-in Camera-Video on the iPad.
4. I opened up Pinnacle Studio ($7.99) and then imported all the pieces (e.g. Sonic Pics video from Step 2 and the other video recordings from Step 3), adding title slides along the way. 
5. Using podsafe music/clips I'd placed in iTunes previously to enhance my video/audio podcasts, I then added those to the audio track in Pinnacle Studio. (it worked great!!!)
6. After getting the video, audio components ready in Pinnacle Studio, I  exported the movie to the Camera Roll/Library.
7. Then, I copied the video to my computer using iFiles ($3.99) connect via WiFi feature. The process of copying it out of the Camera Library converts the video to MOV video format.
1. Alternate, Free approach: EC3 Teachers can save to ECCloud.ecisd.net using WebDavNav (free) for free storage. WebDavNav converts the video to MOV video format.
8. Since I want the video in MP4 video format, on my computer, I used MPEG Streamclip (free) to convert the video to MP4. At this point, I can put the video on YouTube and/or anywhere else where videos may be stored. If I wanted a pre-set size (e.g. iPhone/Android phone), I could have used Miro Video Converter in lieu of MPEG StreamClip (both are free).

That process cost me about $14, a worthwhile investment on my personal iPad. However, what I liked about using these apps is the ability to combine content created in Sonic Pics and then drop that into Pinnacle Studio. This makes enhanced podcasting so doggone easy on an iPad.

Update: A colleague asked a few questions that I thought it would be worth including in this blog entry. Those questions include the following:

Question: Why Pinnacle Studio for $8 vs iMovie for $5?
Response: Pinnacle Studio allows you to add audio tracks. Check out this version of vidcast with audio clips I dropped in.

Question: What format does Pinnacle Studio output?
Response: As best I can tell, the format is MOV. I like to convert it to MP4 because I think that format is "more" compatible for various devices.

Question: Is the mp4 output of mpeg streamclip HTML5 compatible (some mp4 codecs are not)----H.264 codec?
Response: Yes, MPEG Streamclip does support H.264 (Source). Another neat converter to use is Miro Video Converter, which works on Windows and Mac computers.


Question: Which is preferred--Sonic Pics vs Educreations vs ExplainEverything?
Response: Excellent question...I could have done the part I accomplished with Sonic Pics with ExplainEverything, including annotation. However, I found the "storytelling" process of using SonicPics a lot friendlier than the slide show narration of ExplainEverything. 

As to Educreations, the sharing options are limited to posting on their web site...that means I couldn't have saved the Educreations video to my Camera Library, then dropped it into Pinnacle Studio. In other words, until EduCreations allows export of creations to the Camera Library, it's not viable unless you want to share on THEIR web site.