Those who have keenly been following this site definitely have seen somewhere at the bottom an announcement “podcast coming soon”, and if you haven’t been observant or if this is your first time here, the editorial team would like to introduce you to our new born baby “MKU Podcast”.
From the 26th to 30th of September 2022, a team of 8 students from Mount Kenya University Rwanda: Department of Media and Mass communication were selected to attend a podcast training in Rwamagana in the Eastern province of Rwanda.
Students took off at 8:00am on Monday morning from Pax Press offices-Remera and by 10:00am, they were guests at St. Augustine Hotel Rwamagana where the training took place until Friday that same week when they checked out at 3:00pm in the afternoon.
The training that was organized by Pax press Rwanda “a Non Governmental Organization that empowers journalists to report facts-based stories to keep their outlets impartial” in partnership with FOJO Media Institute “Sweden’s leading media development organization strengthening free, independent and professional journalism in Sweden and globally” and coordinated by Mr. Assoumani Ntakirutimana of Rwanda Media Programme had a total of twenty students with the 12 coming from East African University of Rwanda.
Mr. Thomas Jennebo a Radio and Podcast expert from Sweden facilitated the training that started from 9:00am-5:00pm everyday with each day having a different topic to be covered: On the first day of the training; students were tasked to group themselves in groups of 5 each and conduct a two minutes interview with a common question: How did you end up here? (check the podcast section to listen to some of the interviews).
Unlike the first day of the training, on the second day students from both universities (but in the same groups created on day one), had to record and edit “sound” stories (no voices), to be played during the third day of the training.
During the training sessions, Mr. Thomas Jennebo shared expertise tips with students on how to come up with good podcasts. The podcast expert (owner JenneboRadio) who is also a former radio presenter in Sweden with an experience of over 10 years told students that they don’t need posh studios and expensive microphones to come up with good podcasts. “As long as you have a smart phone, a quiet ambience plus good content, and the right soft ware, you can produce excellent podcasts“, Thomas told the students.
Thomas shared various tips with students on how to sound good in podcasts, record echo-free podcasts, names of different software’s that can be used in editing and coming up with personal podcasts. Among these are Adobe Audition and Audacity, Libysn, Blubrry, Sound cloud, Anchor, Podbean, Rcs.com, etc. respectively.
The fun and friendly facilitator also emphasized on never sounding dull in podcasts. In his words, Mr. Thomas Jennebo listed five most important tips as taught to him by “Vallerie Geller” and these were;
5: Never be Boring
4: Never be Boring
3: Never be Boring
2: Never be Boring
1: NEVER BE BORING.
He went on to urge students to always find a way of talking about boring things in a way that’s not boring, “Repetition is the key to learning and while at it, always have fun and enjoy what you’re doing”.
The forth day saw students switch groups and record podcasts of 10minutes that were played on the last day of the training before they all left to their respective destinations (two of the podcasts by students of Mount Kenya University Rwanda have been included in the podcast section for your listening pleasure).
As it is said “work without play makes Jill a dull boy”, the organizers made it a point to always have active students in the training sessions when they included Breakfast, Lunch, Coffee, and Snack breaks every day throughout the entire training period something that was highly appreciated by the participating students.
During these breaks, students from both Universities bonded well with each other and even celebrated one of the students birthday in a cheerful and lovely way. To show that the spirit of Brotherhood between East African University Rwanda and Mount Kenya University Rwanda didn’t stop in Rwamagana, the two universities are to meet again in a friendly football match scheduled to take place in November, 2022.
