Audiocasts, also known as podcasts, are audio files commonly presented as voice recordings and broadcasts available to stream or download via the internet.
“I would suggest to people to close their eyes for a while and try to put themselves in a blind person's shoes. Imagine being permanently deprived of the faculty of sight and every time you want to reach information you have to do it through a cold and robotic voice,” Mr Cano told Media Access Australia.
“Now feel the difference of receiving the same information but recorded by an author from somewhere in the world with their passion to communicate, emphasising the key terms and giving the intonation they find most suitable for the story.
“Now, see that your words are reaching the blind community through your voice and remember that, as one sense is missing, the other ones over-develop. The message you want to deliver, will reach someone willing to listen to it and feel it intensely. What better audience could you dream of for your writing?"
Mr Cano said Speak Your Word was targeted at bloggers in particular because their passion to communicate their experiences—whether travel, film, technology or food—would more likely drive them to also make audiocasts available.
Motivated bloggers would also be more likely to overcome any potential embarrassment in recording themselves speaking, as well as any technological barriers they might encounter.
“The audiocast does not necessarily need to have the highest quality, otherwise we would be setting barriers for ourselves, and that is the contrary of what our intentions are,” Mr Cano said.
“Nowadays almost every device can record decent-quality audio, even the integrated microphone of a webcam or a smartphone could be enough. The real key is to take care of the recording environment, ensuring a silent and steady setting and striving to speak your words in a calm, clear and connecting way.”
Mr Cano said that as the Speak Your Word initiative developed, it would also provide tutorials for bloggers to help them with basic voice recording, and would provide advice on different recording software and hardware.
Bloggers who have created audiocasts can share these via the Speak Your Word Twitter account. Mr Cano said that as Speak Your Word progresses, sharing may be done via a website providing a database of audiocast links.
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