Podcasting has quickly become one of the most popular content types in the last couple of years. Earlier this month I gave a presentation at the Chicago eLearning Showcase on podcasting and gave me audience tips on 4 ways to record your audio content with FREE tools. Here they are:

1. Audacity -probably the most common (other than Garage Band) it’s a free open source audio recording and editing platform. Just be sure to also download the LAMP software to ensure you can export MP3 files for formatting your the proper RSS feeds for your podcast
2. Free Conference Call.com – Yes it is free and will record you or a group of people dialed into the conference line. They will allow you to download the MP3 file of the recorded call so you can edit and add to your RSS feeds.
3. BlogTalk Radio – This is used primarily as a web radio tool but I use do record my podcast show so I can add other sound effects — like an audience applauding or a canned introduction to the show. You can have callers dial in as you record the show live and then BlogTalk will allow you to download the show. This service is free for shows under 30 minutes in length.
4. Amazon Polly in WordPress – This was my latest find, if you have a WordPress blog or site you can embed Amazon’s Polly text to speech voices to “read” your blog post and it will automatically create the RSS feed for you to connect it directly into iTunes as well. You first need to go to AWS (Amazon cloud services) to set up an account to use Polly and there is a minimal cost for using Polly but you can also produce the audio file once inside AWS and then download the MP3 file to add to your post as well.

Please let me know if you know of other free tools for podcasting and I will be happy to share!