Podcasting in the Peace Corps
March 20th, 2005 by Jason Pearce.There are many ways to tell your story as a Peace Corps volunteer. Third Goal helps you tell your story via a community blog while Flickr makes it easy for you to share your photos.
But you don’t have to stick to pictures and words: consider podcasting.
A podcast is a radio-style show that can be downloaded from the Internet and installed on iPods and other portable digital music players for listening any time, any place. Recording and distributing a podcast as a Peace Corps volunteer isn’t easy, but it can be done.
Heck, I was podcasting as a volunteer in 2002 before I even knew what podcasting was.
I took with me a Creative mp3 player called the Nomad. Much like an iPod, the Nomad was basically a portable hard drive that could play mp3s. I used it daily to listen to music and often to move files from machine to machine as an IT volunteer.
Unlike the iPod, the Nomad had a built in microphone that acted like a dictaphone. I could record my voice on the Nomad, which it saved as an mp3. All I had to do was find an internet cafe, transfer the recorded podcasts to a computer, and upload my mp3 recordings somewhere on the internet for friends and family to hear.
My two podcasts can still be found in my Yahoo group. But since that site requires registration, I’ve posted them here for inspiration.
- Peace Corps volunteer Jason Pearce’s podcast, July 2002
- Peace Corps volunteer Jason Pearce’s podcast, August 2002
I don’t have plans on turning Third Goal into a Peace Corps podcast hub. For now, I’m focused on helping you share your stories via words and pictures. But don’t let that stop you from being creative.
There are several offline ways to share your stories too. Besides letters and postcards, some volunteers mail back small audio tapes from dictaphones or send CDs or floppy disks loaded with photos and letters.
Has anyone else tried other creative means of sharing your stories as a volunteer?
February 27th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Jason,
I have been nominated to do Agro-Forestry in the South Pacific and providing I can connect to the internet on occasion am hoping to have video or audio cast. I am curious to know if you experience any resistance from your supervisors about podcasting or any legal/logistic challenges you may have faced and could advice me on.
thanks,
~Julian
February 27th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Well Julian, I got kicked out of the Peace Corps for writing, podcasting, and sharing photos of my experience. So in 2002, I experienced a lot of resistance. Perhaps things are better now, I don’t know.
You might consider blogging here on Third Goal. Just pick an alias that only friends and family will know. They’ll be able to read just your content via your own URL, much like this one: http://www.thirdgoal.com/jasonpearce/. And you get to share your story with a wider audience. Good luck.
February 28th, 2006 at 3:29 am
Jason,
I think podcasting in the Peace Corps is a wonderfull way to tell your story. It is, afterall a major goal of Peace Corps. I doubt my country director would have prevented me from podcasting. Just use your best judgment when doing so. Congrats on getting nominated; its a huge first step.
Erik, Dominica 00-02
March 8th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
My CD would have flipped out about podcasting, as yet more technology that he didn’t understand and felt his authority threatened by. I didn’t get kicked out, but I did get called on the carpet for starting an online database/intranet for volunteers to be able to email and sms one another for free (free given net access, at least) — eventually I sold it to ‘em as a way to get non-emergency safety updates out to the entire volunteer group at once, and that helped.
That’s all to say, this all depends on the local climate in the PC office, and if you get caught or not.