Smarthistory: The Blog » Enhanced Podcasts

SmarthistoryTravel Apps Now Available in the iTunes App Store

Steven — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:24:30 +0000

Smarthistory.org has grown over the past year. We have added a lot of new content and the number of visitors to the site continues to climb. Based on a user survey we conducted last year, we know that many of our visitors are informal learners that travel. We created SmarthistoryTravel apps with these visitors in mind.

SmarthistoryTravel focuses on curious, thoughtful travelers who want expert art analysis delivered in a casual and engaging style. The initial app in this series, “Rome: A First Look,” is now available in the iTunes App Store. We will launch a second app, “Rome: A Closer Look” later this summer. Additional apps that focus on art in other cities will follow. Proceeds from SmarthistoryTravel support Smarthistory, Inc., a not-for-profit organization. Enhance your travel experience and support Smarthistory at the same time!

Brian and Monica on Ramesses II

Beth — Sun, 03 May 2009 11:52:27 +0000

Brian and Monica reveal some fascinating facts about this sculpture of the New Kingdom Pharaoh from The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology.

Ramesses II, Egypt, Herakleopolis
(Temple of Harsaphes), ca. 1250 BCE

Tempera Painting in the Renaissance

Beth — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:01:56 +0000

And today, Steven and David talked about tempera painting in the Renaissance, using voicethread again.

Images of David in the Renaissance

Beth — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 20:58:39 +0000

Yesterday, Professor David Drogin (a colleague from FIT) and I recorded a voicethread about images of David in the Renaissance — primarily looking at them from the point of view of patronage. Boy do I love voicethread!

Giotto, The Lamentation, Arena Chapel, c. 1305

Beth — Wed, 02 May 2007 16:34:39 +0000

An enhanced podcast. Since the images in the quicktime are small, here’s a better reproduction.giotto_Lamentation_better.jpg

Degas, Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub, 1885 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Beth — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:10:03 +0000

An enhanced podcast about Degas’ Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub, 1885 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Caravaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew (1599)

Beth — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:27:13 +0000

An enhanced podcast about this great Baroque painting in the Contarelli Chapel in Rome.

Raphael, Alba Madonna, c. 1510 (National Gallery, Washington, D.C.)

Beth — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:10:39 +0000

An enhanced podcast about this lovely High Renaissance Madonna by Raphael.

Seurat, Evening Honfleur (Museum of Modern Art, 1886)

Beth — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 11:58:10 +0000

An enhanced podcast about this beautiful painting at MoMA.

Van Gogh’s Portrait of Joseph Roulin (1889) in MoMA

Beth — Wed, 17 May 2006 02:25:24 +0000

My first enhanced podcast using garage band, and then saved as a quicktime so it can play here, but also as an “M4A” so that in iTunes (hopefully) it will show up as an enhanced podcast (which it won’t, I believe if it is an MP3) … ugh! all these different file types are driving me insane!

Cezanne, Still Life with Apples, 1895-98 (MoMA) — an enhanced podcast

Beth — Tue, 16 May 2006 16:44:00 +0000

I spent most of yesterday afternoon creating an enhanced podcast from one of our existing audiofiles — the one on Cezanne’s Still Life at MoMA. I had been looking at Pachyderm — and trying to create an example learning object to show the folks at the Museum at FIT what’s possible without a big technology budget. I realized that most of the Pachyderm templates allow for small movie files (2-3MB), but all of our screencasts are much larger. So, I thought that if I made an enhanced podcast with Camtasia, using only a few still images, perhaps the file size would be small enough to be plugged into Pachyderm.

So, I set out to make an enhanced podcast — it took a long time. As usual, a lot of time was spent gathering the right images and bringing them into Camtasia. Then I seemed to have problems with matching the still images with where I wanted them to go with the audio. When I would shift over the image, it seemed like other parts of the movie would shift in other places, and so I had to go back several times to fix things. When I first produced it as a quicktime movie, the transitions, which looked so lovely in Camtasia looked bad, and in addition, a couple of times the images changed sizes — when I hadn’t done that. And I think that later when I opened the Camtasia files, the alignment of the audio and visual tracks had shifted again.

Anyway, I got rid of the transitions and re-produced it. It is still too large (13MB) to put into Pachyderm I think, since the instructions there say 3-4 MB because of download time. Still, it might be useful to try it. We’ll see what it looks like on the video ipod…

Here it is.