The Legal Education Podcasting Project (hereafter LEPP) is a semester-long investigation into podcasting in legal education.  CALI is providing stipends and digital recorders to law faculty for the Spring 2006 semester so that they can either record their classroom lectures or record weekly summaries and post these on a blog where their students can access them.  Over 50 faculty have agreed to participate in the project (see below for the current list).  The original announcement for the project  was sent out to several legal education-related discusscion groups on 12/7/2005 and is reproduced below. 

Please note, that some changes have occurred since the original announcment.  

ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE LEGAL EDUCATION PODCASTING PROJECT

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LEGAL EDUCATION PODCASTING PROJECT

CALI is seeking TEN [Note - we later increased this to 25 and then to 50 to accommodate the unexpected interest]  faculty to record their class lectures OR record weekly summary recordings to be posted as a podcast on CALI’s ClassCaster website.  We want to demonstrate the efficacy of adding podcasting to law school courses as an enhancement to student learning.

Podcasting is just audio delivered over the Internet.  When connected to a blog and an RSS feed, students can set up a subscription so that it automatically downloads new podcasts to their MP3 players (i.e. Apple iPod).

Legal education has a long oral tradition.  The classroom lecture is the core of legal education, but once it’s done, it’s done.  We posit that when students can re-listen to classroom lectures or weekly summaries created by the instructor, they will benefit educationally.  We can’t claim that it will increase grades or that, if it does, it would be possible to measure.  Rather, we seek to understand the qualitative benefits from the student and instructor viewpoints.

Some students take too many notes and do not listen carefully to classroom lectures.  Even the best students may miss something or need to hear it more than once before it sinks in.  Some students are better aural learners than visual learners and would benefit from access to audio recordings of your lectures or weekly summaries that you provide to keep students on track.  Every student is different and every instructor is different.  One size does not fit all.

We don’t want or expect this to change the way you teach your course. We do expect that you and your students will be able to provide excellent insight into how a podcast-enhanced course might be done differently and better than a non-podcast-enhanced course.  This is why we are sponsoring this project.


HOW THIS WORKS

The logistics are fairly simple.  CALI will provide you with a personal digital recorder (PDR) - a small cellphone-sized device that records speech to a flash memory inside the recorder.  Though PDRs are easy to operate, we will create some single-page instruction sheets that shows you exactly what you need to do to make a recording.

You agree to do the following...

1a)     Record all of your lectures and post them to a blog (which CALI will provide) for your students to access and re-listen to your lectures from their PCs or download and listen on their MP3 players.

... or ...

1b)    At the end of every week of class, you will record a 15-30 minute podcast that summarizes the important issues covered in the previous week of classes.  This will be posted to a blog for your students to listen from their PCs or download and listen on their MP3s.  In addition, you will record an “exam advice” podcast near the end of the semester for your students.

2)    Allow these podcasts to be heard by other faculty or students who may be interested in using podcasting in their own courses.  This means that your podcasts will be open to a lot of people, but we prefer this exposure in order to attract attention from other faculty and students and to see if there are cross-over effects.  If this is a problem, let me know in your application and we can discuss alternatives.

3)    Schedule a time near the end of the semester when someone from CALI can visit your class and take 10-15 minutes to talk to the students about the project.  This will probably only be done for 2-3 participants.

4)    Direct your students to a survey about the project that we will post on the CALI website.

5)    Make an effort to participate in a conference presentation in June of 2006 on this project.

We are looking for at least FIVE [See note above] faculty who will choose each category for a total of TEN faculty projects.

Please note, that you will be able to use the blog to post your syllabus and other course materials if you want.

We will also create a special blog and mailing list just for participants in this project to discuss ideas and reactions during the semester.


SOME INTERESTING QUESTIONS

Q1 - If I record my lectures, students won’t come to class

A1 - We are not certain that this is true and it is one of the questions we would like to investigate with this project.  The blogging software allows you delay the posting of the podcast lectures for an hour or a day or a week to mitigate this issue.

Q2 - What about recording student responses during discussion?

A2 - The PDR that we are providing will pickup your voice just fine, but not that of your students or muted at best.  No students will be identified by this project in any reporting of the results unless they expressly give permission to CALI.  If you conduct a highly interactive or socratic class in a large room, there is not much you can do unless every student is mic-ed and you can plug the PDR into the sound system to pick up everything that is said in the room.

Q3 - Do students have to sign a waiver if their voice appears on the recordings?

A3 - Good question.  We are researching this.  If it is necessary to get student waivers, we will send you the waiver and ask your students to sign and return them to us.  If not all students sign, we will have to listen and edit out any student voices from the recordings before they are posted.  This would be a worst-case scenario.  [Note - after doing some research, it seems that the specific law or policy governing this is different for every state and every educational institution. Therefor, it is the responsibility of the participating faculty to make sure that they are in compliance with local rules, policies and regulations.]

Q4 - Who owns the copyright on the recordings?

A4 - You do.  CALI only needs a limited license to post the recordings and make them available to the law school community.  We are working on the exact license for this project.  [Note - in other words, CALI is not claiming any ownership of the recorded materials created by law faculty.]

Q5 - What is the $1000 for?

A5 - It’s an stipend for the time and effort you put in making the recordings and posting them to the CALI website.  It is an incentive to substantially complete the project and stick with it throughout the semester.  [Note - because there more faculty willing to participate than CALI could afford to provide stipends for, we picked 25 of the 50 to receive stipends, but will provide digital recorders and blog hosting for everyone who wants to participate.]


HOW DO I APPLY

Send an email to John Mayer with your name, school and the course you are teaching in the Spring 2006 semester.  We will choose participants on an ongoing basis until we have reached our limit.  We will have a sample PDR at the CALI booth at the AALS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC if you want to stop by and check it out.  We will send you you a  PDR and $500 right after AALS.  At the end of the semester, we will send you another check for $500 if you complete the project.

If you have any questions, let me know.

With Regards,

John

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Your recordings are stored on your Olympus digital recorder in the WMA file format which needs to be converted to MP3 before posting to your blog.  CALI has assembled a tool that you can download and install that will convert the WMA file into an MP3 file with the correct bitrate and volume levels.  The tool is called ffmpeg and can be downloaded from here...

http://classcaster_news.classcaster.org/blog/resource/utilities/FFinstall.exe

Once you install this utility, it will create an icon on your desktop with the name MakeMP3.  It looks like this...



You can plug your Olympus into your PC’s USB port and use Windows Explorer to view the files on it.  Find the recording you just made and drag it onto the MakeMP3 icon and it will automatically convert the file to MP3.  The resulting file will end up in the folder ...

 C:\Documents and Settings\<your Windows login name>\My Documents\classcaster

If you are having trouble with ffmpeg and saving your podcast files, please check this FAQ entry.


***** IT IS A VERY GOOD IDEA TO RENAME THE FILE FROM WS_10001.mp3 TO SOMETHING ELSE SO THAT YOU DON'T OVERWRITE IT WHEN YOU UPLOAD FUTURE MP3s ******

I suggest renaming the file to the date of the class like 20060112Contracts.mp3 or 2006_01_12_Contracts.mp3 (do NOT use slashes as they are illegal file name characters). 



The original WMA file is saved in ...

C:\Documents and Settings\jmayer\My Documents\classcaster\archive

...for backup.  You want to erase the original from your Olympus to make sure there is room for future recordings. 

To upload your MP3 to your blog ...

1.  Go to http://www.classcaster.org and login to administer your blog.





2.  Once you are logged in, you are at  your blog's "Dashboard".  Now click on the name of your blog. (where the red arrow is pointing.)






3.  Now you want to click on FILE CENTER in the tabbed menu.







4.  Now click on FILES to see what folders and files are available already.  Note that there is already a podcast folder.  This is a special folder for your telephone recordings.







5.  Click on NEW FOLDER  to create a place for your course MP3s.  






6.  Name the new folder LECTURES, put in a short description and click ADD.





7.  You only have to create the new folder once.   To (finally) upload your MP3, click on NEW FILE.





***** IT IS A VERY GOOD IDEA TO RENAME THE FILE FROM WS_10001.mp3 TO SOMETHING ELSE SO THAT YOU DON'T OVERWRITE IT WHEN YOU UPLOAD FUTURE MP3s ******

I suggest renaming the file to the date of the class like 20060112Contracts.mp3 or 2006_01_12_Contracts.mp3 (do NOT use slashes as they are illegal file name characters).   You can do this at this point by highlighting the file name and pressing F2 or right-clicking on the file name and choosing RENAME from the menu. 


7.  Browse to locate the recording on your hard drive in C:\Documents and Settings\<your Windows login>\My Documents\classcaster, enter a short description , select Lectures from the pulldown list of folders and click ADD.






8.  If you are at school where the internet connection is fast, this should take a couple of minutes.  At home on a DSL or cable modem, it will take a bit longer.  On a modem connection - oooof.  Once it finishes, the screen should look something like this...




That's it.  Your class recording is NOT yet available to your students.  You have to create a post on your blog and point to this file.  There's a seperate FAQ entry for that. 

Here is the list of faculty that I have been in touch with about the project.  Since we are still in the process of getting up and running, this list may change.  Later I will post a link to the course blogs (at least those that are not behind a password).   Email John Mayer with any changes.

Updated 1/24/2006

#	First	Last	School	Course	Model	Blog URL
1	William	Andersen	University of Washington	Administrative Law	Weekly Summary
2	Steve	Bradford	Nebraska	Securities Regulations	Weekly Summary	http://securities_regulation-steve_bradford.classcaster.org/blog/
3	Rebecca	Bratspies	CUNY	Property
4	Carole	Buckner	Western State	Remedies or Civil Procedure II	Weekly Summary	http://professor_buckner.classcaster.org/blog/
5	Regina	Burch	Capital University	Corporations	Weekly Summary	http://burchs_ba_2.classcaster.org/blog/
6	Scott	Burnham	Montana	Contracts	Weekly Summary	http://scott_burnhams_contracts_class.classcaster.org/blog/
7	Richard	Carlson	South Texas	Family Law and/or Contracts		http://carlsonblog.classcaster.org/blog/
8	Bill	Childs	Western New England	Products Liability	Record Lecture	http://products_liability_2006_wnec.classcaster.org/blog/
9	Deb	Cohen	Southern New England	Contracts	Weekly Summary	http://professor_debra_r_cohen_spring_2006.classcaster.org/blog/
10	Robin	Craig	Indiana-Indianapolis	Property II	Record Lecture	http://iu-indy_property_2.classcaster.org/blog/
11	Jane	Cross	Nova Southweastern	UCC: Negotiable Instruments	Weekly Summary
12	Robert	Dekoven	California Western	Intro to Legal Research or Appellate Advocacy	Record Lecture
13	Aaron	Fellmeth	Arizona State	Patent Law	Record Lecture	http://patent_law_-_asu_college_of_law.classcaster.org/blog/
14	Norm	Garland	Southwestern	Criminal Procedure	Record Lecture	http://southwestern_law_school_crim_pro_section_c.classcaster.org/blog/
15	Barbara	Glesner-Fines	UMKC	Family Law	Weekly Summary	http://umkc_family_law_-_bgf.classcaster.org/blog/
16	Kirkland	Grant	Charleston	Business Organizations
17	Richard	Graves	U of Arkansas-Little Rock	Professional Responsibility or Property II	Record Lecture	http://legal_profession_r_graves_ualr_bowen.classcaster.org/blog/
18
19	William	Gregory	Georgia State	Unincorporated Business Associations/Agency and Partnership	Record Lecture	http://securities_reg_prof_gregory.classcaster.org/blog/
20	Joe	Grohman	Nova Southweastern	Property	Record Lecture
21	Dean Tom	Guernsey	Albany	Evidence	Record Lecture	http://evidence.classcaster.org/blog/
22	Peter	Henning	Wayne State	Professional Responsibility	Weekly Summary	http://henningpr.classcaster.org/blog/
23	Mark	Hoch	Lousiana State	Legal Writing
24	Gordon	Hylton	Marquette	American Constitutional History	Record Lecture
25	Lolita	Iniss	Osgoode	Racism/US/Canadian Comparative	Weekly Summary
26	Andrea	Johnson	California Western	Telecom Law and Administrative Law	Weekly Summary	http://administrative_law.classcaster.org/blog/
27	Danne	Johnson	Oklahoma City	Civil Procedure II	Record Lecture	http://johnsons_civ_pro_ii.classcaster.org/blog/
28	Steve	Kanter	Lewis and Clark	Constitutional Law II or Criminal Procedure	Record Lecture
29	Jacki	Knapman	Michigan State	Professional Responsibility	Weekly Summary
30	Karl	Manheim	Loyola-Los Angeles	Constitutional Law I	Record Lecture	http://con_law_i.classcaster.org/blog/
31	Marla	Mansfield	Tulsa	Property	Weekly Summary	http://mansfield-property-200600.classcaster.org/blog/
32	Ed	Martin	Cumberland/Samford	Damages	Record Lecture	http://damages.classcaster.org/blog/
33	Jennifer	Martin	Western New England	Commercial Paper, Business Organizations or Int'l Transactions	Weekly Summary	http://western_new_england_college_-_professor_martins_b.classcaster.org/blog/
34	Marcia L.	McCormick	Cumberland/Samford	Employment Law	Weekly Summary	http://professor_mccormicks_blog.classcaster.org/blog/
35	Mary	McCormick	Florida State	Advanced Legal Research	Weekly Summary	http://advanced_legal_research_-_fsu_college_of_law.classcaster.org/blog/
36	Tracy	McGaugh	South Texas	Legal Research and Writing II	Weekly Summary
37	Karen	Mika	Cleveland Marshall	Legal Writing and Litigation	Record Lecture	http://legal_draftinglegal_writing_and_litigation.classcaster.org/blog/
38	Carl	Moy	William Mitchell	Civil Procedure	Record Lecture
39	Diane	Murley	Southern Illinois University	Legal Research Lectures	Record Lecture	http://lawyering_skills_ii_legal_research.classcaster.org/blog/
40	John	Nann	Yale	Basic Legal Research	Weekly Summary
41	Greg	Ogden	Pepperdine	Civil Procedure II and Remedies	Record Lecture	http://professor_ogden_spring_2006_classes_pepperdine_la.classcaster.org/blog/
42	Lee	Peoples	Oklahoma City	Advanced Legal Research - Foreign, Comparative and International Law	Weekly Summary	http://advanced_legal_research_fcil_spring_2006.classcaster.org/blog/
43	Thad	Pope	Memphis	Health Law	Both	http://health_law_blog.classcaster.org/blog/
44	Ed	Richards	Lousiana State		Weekly Summary
45	Gordon	Russell	Charleston	Lab in Seminar in Refugee Law	Record Lecture	http://charleston_school_of_law_podcasts.classcaster.org/blog/
46	Stephen	Safranek	Ave Maria	Contracts	Record Lecture	http://contracts.classcaster.org/blog/
47	Daniel	Schneider	Northern Illinois University	Taxation of Business Enterprises	Weekly Summary	http://business_tax.classcaster.org/blog/
48	Charles	Shafer	Baltimore	Torts	Weekly Summary	http://blogipsaloquitor.classcaster.org/blog/
49	Stephen	Spitz	Charleston	Property	Record Lecture	http://charleston_school_of_law_podcasts.classcaster.org/blog/
50	Peter	Strauss	Columbia	Legislation	Record Lecture	http://cls_legislation.classcaster.org/blog/
51	Nic	Terry	St. Louis	Torts and Health Care Quality	Weekly Summary
52	Douglas	Tucker	Chicago-Kent	Lawyering for Venture Capital and other Enterprise Financing	Record Lecture
53	Richard	Warner	Chicago-Kent	Contracts	Record Lecture
54	Patrick	Wiseman	Georgia State	Property	Record Lecture

If you want to add an MP3 to a post, first you must upload the MP3 you want to include in the post. Then follow these directions:

1. Go to your blog's Dashboard and click on the name of your blog.







2.  This should open the 'New Post' form.   Fill out the information for the post.  At the point where you want to create a link for the podcast, click on the Insert Resource Icon.







3.  This opens a windows showing your folders and files.  Navigate to the 'Lecture' folder or wherever you have previously uploaded your MP3s.






4.   Now click on the 'Add File' link next to the MP3 you want to attach to this blog post. 






5.   This inserts a link to the file at the cursor position.  You may edit the text of the link, but do so carefully as the link contains special information that enables the podcasting of the file.






6.   When you are done editing the post, change the 'Status' to 'Published' and 'Update' the post. or if this is a new post, click 'Blog This'.




That's it.  Your MP3 is linked from the blog post and can now be clicked and listened to or downloaded. 

Here's a checklist of things you need to be able to do to make this podcasting thing work. 

Next to each item is an explanation or a link to where you can get more information. 


1. Create an account at www.cali.org

You will need your schools authorization code to do this.  The person responsible for handing this out at your school can be found here....

Alternatively, drop me an email and I will send you your school's authorization code. 


2. Create a blog at www.classcaster.org

Here is an FAQ on how to do this with screenshots...




3. Make an introductory recording to your students.

This involves the Olympus WS-100 that you have or whatever your recording setup entails.  I am working on an FAQ on the Olympus. 



4. Copy the introductory recording off of the Olympus WS-100 to your computer and rename it.

Should be relatively straightforward.  Insert the Olympus into your PC's USB slot and Windows should let you open Explorer (not Internet Explorer) to copy the file and rename it. 



5. Download and install ffmpeg so that you can convert the WMA file from the Olympus to MP3.

ffmpeg can be downloaded and installed (Windows only) from here...

There is a Mac/OSX version available here ...




6. Convert your introductory recording into an MP3.

Here is an FAQ on this process....





7. Upload your MP3 to your blog.

Here is an FAQ...





8. Create a new blog post and attach your podcast to that post.

Here is an FAQ...




9. Go to your blog and listen to your post. 

Piece of cake!

ffmpeg  should work for most of you, but some have reported problems running it on PCs where you are networked or can't tell what's going wrong.  Before you try the following alternative, please check this FAQ entry.

There is a free converter available called Switch at http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html.  

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The rest of this FAQ will show you how to use Switch to convert your recordings into MP3s.

I am assuming that you have already downloaded and installed Switch. 

The first step is to copy the WMA file from your Olympus WS-100 onto your hard drive.  You can copy the file anywhere you like.  I suggest that you create the folder ...

 C:\Documents and Settings\<your windows login>\My Documents\classcaster

... where your converted MP3s will end up and and ...

C:\Documents and Settings\<your windows login>\My Documents\classcaster\archive ...

where your unconverted WMA recordings are saved. 

Open up Switch and this is what you should see. 








To convert your WMA file, you 'add' it to Switch by clicking on the 'add' button and navigating to C:\Documents and Settings\<your windows login>\My Documents\classcaster\archive or wherever you copied the file from the Olympus.







It's worth pointing out that you should DEFINITELY rename the file to something more evocative at this point like 2006-01-19-Contracts.wma.  This will prevent you from overwriting the file when you record your next podcast and copy it your archive.  

Before you convert the file in Switch, make sure your encoding settings are correct. 








Make sure that the Output Format is set to .mp3 and that the Output Folder is set to C:\Documents and Settings\<your windows login>\My Documents\classcaster.   Now click on the 'Encoder Settings' button. 





1)  The Constant Bit Rate (CBR) should be checked. 

2)   The Bitrate should be set to 24.

3)   The High Quality Encoding should be UNCHECKED or empty.

4)  The Stereo Encoding should be set to MONO. 

I have tested this with a recordingand the result  is very good with a very small MP3 file size. This is important, because the smaller the file size, the less time it takes for your students to download. 

Last step!

Click the convert button and your WMA will be converted to MP3.   For  hour-long recordings, it will take a couple of minutes so be patient.







That's it.  You are now ready to upload your MP3 to your blog. 

This is the first of a series of FAQs about operating your Olympus WS-100.

The three most important buttons on the WS-100 are the ...

1)  Hold button (on the back).  When this button is DOWN, it means that you can make recordings, erase files, etc.  When this button is UP, it is as though the WS-100 is turned off.  The point is to prevent accidental button-pushing when the WS-100 is in your pocket or when you are handling it during recording.  In the picture, the Hold button is down. 

2)  The Power button (also on back) turns the  WS-100 on and off.  After a periof of inactivity, the WS-100 will automatically turn itself off to save battery life (but never when you are recording). 





3)  The third most important button is the RECORD button. 





The first time you press the RECORD button, the device starts recording.  If you press it again, it pauses the recording (it will  beep twice and display 'PAUSED' on the LCD display).  If you press RECORD again (third time), it will continue recording into the same file. 

If you press the RECORD button and then press the STOP button, it will close the file.  The next time you press the RECORD button, it will start recording in a new file.  If you do this during class, you will have to copy, convert and upload all of the files to cover all of the recording for the class.  It isn't a bad idea (if you can remember to do this) to chop your class recordings into 15 or 30 minutes segments by pressing STOP and then RECORD again at the 15 or 30 minute points in the class.  This makes it easier for students to download and listen. 

The LCD display on the WS-100 contains a lot of information.  Here is a tour of it's parts...

RECORDING FOLDER
In the upper-left hand corner running across the top there will be a letter in a circle - either (A), (B), (C), (D), or (E).  In the picture, you should see (B).  This is the folder on the drive that you are currently recording in or looking at (in the case when you want to delete a file). 





Here is what the file folders look like from your PC when you plug the WS-100 into your PC's USB slot. 









BATTERY LEVEL
In the upper, right-hand side of the LCD display is the battery level.  DO NOT TRUST THIS!  If you are recording three lectures a week, it would be a good idea to replace the battery every week. 





RECORD MODE INDICATOR (REE-kord mode not REK-ord mode)
The RECORD MODE is controls the quality of the recording (and therefore the amount of recording) that you can fit on the recorder.  In HQ or high quality mode, you can record about 4 hours and 20 minutes.  In LP or long playing mode, you can record up to 27 hours and 20 minutes, and in SP mode you can record 8 hours and 40 minutes.    In my tests, I could  not distinguish between the quality of the modes, so I have set mine to SP mode and you should too.  I explain how to do this in another FAQ. 





MICROPHONE SENSITIVITY
The WS-100 has a built-in microphone, so if you forget to bring your lapel microphone to class, just hang the device around your neck or set it on the podium.  It is designed to pick up voices in a meeting room.  I have recorded several meetings with up to 17 people in the room and was able to hear everyone quite clearly (depending on the speaker's voice of course).  Notice that the WS-100 in the picture is set to HIGH sensitivity.  Yours should be too.






CURRENT FILE NUMBER
The biggest number in the display is the current file number.  This is for reference - it is not the file name. Everytime you make a new recording, the number if incremented. 







FILE LENGTH
The last display item at the bottom is the elapsed time during recording.  It displays in hours: minutes: seconds.  This area of the display will also contain the current time/date, recording date remaining recording time or act as a menu display depending on what you are doing with the device.  The most common use of this display for you is the elapsed time of recording. 





That's all for the display.  There is more to it than I have covered, but those are the basics. 

The instructions that came with the WS-100 are pretty clear on how to set the time and date.  It is a good idea to do this so that you can identify files by date on the device. 

The factory default RECORD MODE for the WS-100 is HQ or high quality.  In HQ, the WS-100 can record 4 hours and 20 minutes of audio.  In SP or standard mode, it can hold 8 hours and 40 minutes and in LP or long play mode, it can hold 27 hours and 20 minutes.  SP mode is good enough.  I have not been able to discern any appreciable difference in recordings made in HQ or SP mode. 

To change the RECORD MODE on your WS-100, follow these steps. 

1)  Turn on the WS-100. 

2)  Press and hold the MENU/FOLDER button the front until it beeps and you see the word 'Mode' flashing on the LCD display. 






3)  If 'Mode' is not displayed, press the Fast Forward/FF (on the side) repeatedly until 'Mode' is displayed.






4)  Now press the 'Play' button and you should hear a higher-pitched beep and either HG, SP or LP will be flashing on the LCD display. 



5)  Press Fast Forward/FF repeatedly until SP is flashing on the display. 



6)  Press the 'Stop' button and you should hear two beeps. 


The WS-100 is now in SP RECORD MODE. 

In order to function properly, the ffmpeg utility assumes that you have a 'My Documents' folder and it is located in a standard place¹.  In some network or security environments this is not the case.  Fear not, it is easy to modify the utilites once they are installed so that your podcasts are saved to a directory you select. 

Assuming that you were able to install somewhere², look in the ffmpeg directory.  There is a file there called wma2mp3.cmd.  This is the file that powers the drag and drop icon on the desktop.  To get it to work with other directories, just edit the path information in the 2 lines to point somewhere else.  For example, changing '%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\My Documents\classcaster'  to 'C:\classcaster' will save your podcasts in the classcaster folder on the C drive.  Just don't change anything after the last '\' since that bit actually handles the automatic naming of the files.  You will need to create the necessary folders by hand for this to work. 

Once you make this change dragging media files onto the 'MakeMP3' icon will cause ffmpeg to run and save the files to the folder you specified.  I would suggest sharing this FAQ with you local support person as they should be able to help you set this up properly.

 

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¹ The standard location for this folder is C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\My Documents\.
² FFmpeg is usually installed in C:\Progrma Files\FFMpeg, but this can be modified at install time.

There is a three minute screencast that shows how to combine multiple MP3s into a single MP3 using Audacity here. 

This FAQ explains how to combine multiple MP3 files into a single MP3 file for uploading as a single podcast to your blog.  There is a screencast version of this also available.

Audacity is the software tool that you can use to combine MP3s.  You can download Audacity from here.   You cannot use Audacity to open up the WMA files that are recorded by the Olympus WS-100 digital recorder.  You must convert the files to MP3 format first using ffmpeg or Switch. 

Start by opening up Audacity.  Audacity creates a new project and you want to 'Import Audio' into the project.  Import the first MP3 by clicking on 'Project' --> 'Import Audio' from the menu.







After you have imported the first MP3, the screen should look like this...






Now, you can go ahead and import the other MP3 files into your project.  For this FAQ, I will be combining three MP3s.   Once I have all three imported, the screen looks like this...





Use the 'Zoom Out' tool to shrink the size of the audio streams so that you can see everything on the screen in such a away that if you were to line them up end-to-end, they would all fit on the screen.  This may take clicking the 'Zoom Out' button several times.







Once you have 'zoomed out" enough, the screen looks like this...






Click on the 'Time Shift' tool in the upper-left corner of the screen ...





You are going to use this tool to slide the sound files so that they line up end-to-end.  Use your mouse to click and drag the second and third sound files to the right until they look like this...





Your work is nearly complete.  Now just click  'File' --> 'Export as MP3'  to save the combined recordings as a single MP3. 





That's it.  Now you can upload the saved MP3 as a single podcast to your blog.