Encoding and Reszing MP3's in Audacity

The following set of tutorial videos cover the steps necessary to create MP3 files for the web and Book Builder in Audacity. If you are using Microsoft Windows, there is one gigantic oversight in the second video. The following description will make absolutely zero sense until you've seen the video, so just remember to refer back to it when I show you how to download the MP3 encoder/maker in Video 2 (I also make a reference to it in Video 3).

If you are on a PC, when you download the lame encoder, I incorrectly indicate in the video that it should look like the file that I download onto my Mac... that's wrong! If you're working on a PC, the file you will look for when you unzip the LAME folder is called lame_enc.dll

Video 1: Making MP3s with Audacity;
Video 2: Downloading the MP3 Encoder (If you're on a PC, refer to the correction above)
Video 3: Make your first MP3
Video 4: Reducing your MP3 file size (The best way)
Video 5: Reducing your MP3 file size (The not quite best way)

Book Builder Tutorials

The following video tutorials support Thursday's lab on Book Builder

Create an Account at CAST
Create your First Book
Create a Title Page with text and image
Create Body Page for your content
Add Sound to your first page (apologies for the fact that you can't hear my sound at the end)
Add links to a Glossary
Learn about Coaches

How I Learn New Things (on the internet)

For my media lab, I've decided to take a somewhat unusual approach to teaching in which I demonstrate how I learn. Specifically, I use the video tutorial format to illustrate how I learn to use technology for problem solving. In the introduction video, I indicate that I often get asked how I know whatever it is I might know about technology; my answer is invariably, "I just taught myself." Believe me, it's not as impressive as it might sound,

So my intent in these videos is to demonstrate/act out my approach to figuring out a new skill on the internet. In this case, I set a task that I genuinely had never done before (converting a song I heard on TV into an ipod music file (mp3)) and just narrate what I'm doing as I go through the process. Because I tried to keep this authentic, and didn't want to re-record any parts of it, I stumble, mis-speak etc., here and there. I even get stuck on something that doesn't work (imagine that!). My goal, in this case, is to demonstrate how you can go about figuring something out, and to provide visual evidence that even the tech savvy among us, must deal with many of the same learning obstacles.

Introduction
The Search
Failure and Redemption
Audacity
iTunes