You’ll have to check out this week’s audio letter home coming on Sunday to find out why I’ve been away from camp so long. I did manage to make it back for another audio week in which my bunkhouse is engaged in creating a string of stories along a topic – ala This American Life.
Part of the project is to create a 15 to 30 second radio bump to promote our live show airing next week on DS106 Radio.
You’ve seen the news. You know what is coming. What was a few incidents quickly spreads to a pandemic and eventually we will be thrust into chaos and the apocalypse. The virus is being carried by those who were once our friends and neighbors.
At ds106, we are in the midst of two weeks of audio training…learning…creating…and in my case, FUMBLING!
I’ve been super busy with work, deadline looming. Too many extended days has kept me away from my daily participation in The Daily Creates. Truth be told, I did them pretty much all at once. I know that’s not the purpose behind them, but I vow to do better this week.
I kinda feel like I copped out a little on this one. I pass many construction zones on my commute to work, but I have never been able to stop and take a pic. In my frantic attempt to complete my required number of Daily Creates this week, I tried to get creative on construction. First I thought of doing “cardstruction” but was unable to find a deck of cards to work with AND I noticed someone else had already used that idea. Wanting to be original, I did an internet search for sites under construction and I found this neat front page of a webpage under construction! I took a screenshot, converted to a jpeg, and now I have a picture of construction! Haha!
So I’m thinking about things that make me sick for this challenge. And I’m wondering…why in the world would anyone want to photograph of something that makes them sick! Ha! When I think “sick”, I think literally getting sick, vomiting. Well, I vomit when I have the flu…or when I was pregnant, but I can’t really photograph THAT, so what else makes me sick? Too much drink! The truly foul offender, Goldschlager, is no longer allow in my home, because the shear sight or smell of it makes my stomach flip! Well, Jagermeister can be just as vulgar and I had some in my freezer. And it was pulled from the depths of its frozen home for a quick photo shoot…and then back to the freezer it went, without even cracking it open. Nothing special about the photography here, just point and shoot from an angle.
Another prime example of ds106, changing the way I look at things! I tried to take the challenge to heart and really look for something that I hadn’t noticed before. I started roaming my house, focusing on the rooms I spend the most time in: living room, kitchen, even the front porch. But I found a surprise in my bedroom! I changed my usual range of vision and looked high and low. Up high, near the peak of the cathedral ceiling, there is a ledge. I never go up there, it’s about 9 feet above the floor. For the same reason, I don’t display anything up there either, because then I’d have to climb up there to clean it. Well, I think I really should climb up there for the first time in 6 years. Apparently there is so much dust accumulating up there that even the dust bunnies are ready to commit Harry Carry. They are closing in on me, waiting to accost me in my sleep! I had to make some adjustment to the camera to capture the image. Without fiddling with the settings, the first few images didn’t show the fine details of dust. Zoom, adjust, and shoot, then I got it! Maybe I’ll have time to do some deep cleaning after my summer classes are over. This is a little embarrassing!
So I had to watch a video from “This American Life” which is an internet podcast station. During the hour-long video I was a little bored, I know one if not both of my camp counselors would be upset to hear this. I thought that the story could have made its point in a lot shorter amount of time then it did. The parts that were most bothersome to me were probably the voices of Starlee Kine and Sarah Vowell, Sarah more-so then Starlee. I thought they were in-animated, and I feel like if I can’t get the visuals then I should be able to hear some excitement in the voices instead of monotone. I will say that I did chuckle at some of Sarah’s dry-humored remarks about people comparing themselves to Rosa Parks. Especially the part about Ted Nugent “…he refers to himself as a Rosa Parks with a loud guitar which is so inaccurate, everyone knows he is a Mary Magdalene with a fancy deer rifle.”
In regards to Ira Glass and his “basics of storytelling,” I felt that this podcast was missing bait. I did not really feel myself finding questions that needed to be answered by the story. Though this story did avoid what he called one of the “pitfalls for beginners” which was that the narrators of the story did not talk about themselves too much. They focused more so on the story they were trying to tell, but they were still present with their input and in Sarah’s case her witty remarks.
When the story was all said and done I did find myself relating to it. I do indeed prefer re-runs over new shows because they remind me of childhood (can I say 90s nick at night?). I know that their are stories that I share with guests that my family or other friends roll their eyes at because they have heard it a thousand times. For example, I was telling some people that I used to work with about the story behind my new car and it was the third time that day that my boyfriend had heard it and he just sighed and suffered through it again. What I found most entertaining was people relating themselves to Rosa Parks. It got me thinking about many of the different nonsense metaphors that people use to try and make a point. Ahh well, what can you do?
In this Audio Assignment I had to create a story using only sounds. My first thought was a “do not drink and drive” type story. But I figured this was too cliche. I browsed through Free Sound and some of the first sounds to pop up were beach sounds. Ding Ding Ding, hello beach wedding! So I decided on a beach wedding as my story. My story would open up with the sounds of the ocean so that listeners would know that we were at the beach. Then you would hear footsteps, this is suppose to represent the bride walking towards the beginning of the isle. Chatter is heard which represents the guests of the wedding talking as they wait for the ceremony to start. Footsteps are heard again and then then bridal walk song breaks out.
I used 4 different sounds, 3 of which were found on Free Sound. This was the hardest of all my assignments. I had to upload all three of my sounds onto Audacity. Then I had to try and figure out how to cut certain segments of each soundbite out and paste it into a new sound stream. It took me awhile to get the cutting a pasting down. I was able to cut and paste all three of the sounds that I found on Free Sound into one sound stream. For the last sound, which was the bridal walk song, I just recorded that in from Youtube. I saved my new file and was finished.
For this Audio Assignment I had to make a radio bumper for the DS106 radio station. To be honest I had no idea what a radio bumper was before this assignment, so that in itself was a learning experience! For inspiration I once again used my ipod. I figured it is a bumper for a radio station so it needs to have MUSIC in it. I came upon one of my new favorite songs “Glad You Came”, by The Wanted. When I saw the title I was like “viola!” I could use a slogan like “Glad you came to the Ds106 radio station!”…I hope everyone can sense my excitement.
This took me some time to figure out how to do. What I ended up doing was downloading the song onto Myxer and cropping the segment out that I wanted to use for my bumper. I had to do this because I could not directly import songs from Itunes into Audacity. I imported the cropped version of the song from Myxer into Audacity. I played the song on Audacity and as soon as it ended I recorded in my voice. I saved the file and I was done!
For this Audio Assignment I had to choose a song that triggers a memory for me and describe what the memory is. It took me awhile to figure out which song I wanted to use. So many of my memories are associated with either songs or smells. I went through my ipod playlist and happened upon the song “Drops of Jupiter” by Train. I listened to the song and just let my mind wonder. I ended up visualizing myself back on a military base swimming pool in California, reminiscing about my summer youth.
I chose to do my introduction by playing part of the song, pausing to describe my memory, and then resuming part of the song. I used Audacity and Youtube for this assignment. I had Audacity opened in one window and Youtube in another. I started playing the song on Youtube while recording in Audacity, then I paused the Youtube song to talk about my memory, and then continued playing the Youtube song.
One of the Audio Assignments I found this week was to record myself being a picky person with an accent ordering from Mcdonalds. The best accent that I can do is probably an Asian lady. This is because I am around my boyfriend’s family a lot and they are Korean, so I have grown used to the accent. I pre-wrote what I was planning on ordering from Mcdonalds and made sure to add in some “authentic comments,” such as wanting a tofu burger.
This was an easy assignment to do. All I had to do was record my accented voice (which I did do on soundcloud) ordering my yummy tofu Big Mac, drink, and 2 shakes. It was fun talking in that accent.
Poetry Reading — MISSION: DS106 Poetry is meant to be read aloud. Select a poem – it can be a personal favorite or one you find randomly – and read it aloud. Explain in your recording why you chose that poem.
Lots of S sounds I am afraid.
I am reading a poem by my daughter about hillwalking.
Here is my Story with only sounds I did mine about a fishing trip I used http://www.findsounds.com/ to get the sounds and then used Audacity to put them together. This is the first time using any sort of sounds editing software and I am excited about learning more about it and figuring out more advanced ways to edit music and sounds.
This is really easy to set up and can be done at any time but ideally at the end of an event. The caveat is that it only captures 500 tweets at a time. So if there is a lot of twitter activity you will need to break apart the conference by dates. I had to create two archives and then merged the PDF files into one. This isn’t ideal and there are probably duplicate tweets overlapping the days.
So what about Storify? I’ve used storify for a few different events and really find it is best when you want to include a variety of media: tweets, flickr & instagram pictures, videos, etc. I don’t find it works as well for an entire conference or any scenario where there are more than 25 artifacts. Filtering plays a big role. Also, I’m not sure about the long term viability of using this format for archiving. It relies on multiple tools in the cloud to maintain the status quo. If my work with online courses and linking to external sites has taught me anything it is to expect things to change.
Here is a short storify I created from the closing panel which seemed to get the some of the most twitter activity for a plenary during the entire conference. This is created from the Storify site and you specify which tweets you want to use. This allows you to filter out repeated retweets and/or choose the tweet that really captured the quote the best. Selection is done manually though, so the act of curation obviously takes more time.
stlhe2012 Closing Plenary: Student Panel
Student leaders speak on the future of Canadian post-secondary education
Storified by Giulia Forsythe · Sat, Jun 23 2012 01:10:37
Students run the panel to close #stlhe2012. Yes!Christine Adam
Really looking forward to hearing the student voices in Montreal #STLHE2012 http://pic.twitter.com/KW5vna4WJoanne Fox
#stlhe2012 student leaders about to speak! Looking forward to hearing their voices, thoughts, and ideas!Trent Tucker
First student panel at #stlhe2012 Blind Curves or Open Roads?Veronica Carr
#stlhe2012 Student plenary: fun to hear them getting excited about things their institutions doing well. Reinforces my desire to innovate.Catherine Rawn
Inspiring vision – to translate passion for teaching and learning to community engagement. #stlhe2012Natasha Kenny
Cegeps rescue students from high school… LOL #STLHE2012Jaymie Koroluk
#stlhe2012 student leaders motivated to wake up asking, "how can I contribute today?" #stlhe2012 – to actualize their potential!Natasha Kenny
brilliant insight for life! @ProfTucker: #stlhe2012 student panel: it is not about having the right answers but asking the right questions!Natasha Kenny
#stlhe2012 Imagine if all our students "got it" like these students seem to! When I teach a class of 300+, how can I reach these students?Catherine Rawn
Model, inspire, motivate & build hope“@cdrawn: #stlhe2012 When I teach a class of 300+, how can I reach these students?"Natasha Kenny
Teach towards engaged and informed citizens, inspire curiosity, explore core truths, encourage reflection, generate meaning #STLHE2012Joanne Fox
#stlhe2012 Alexandre: PSE gives you the "shoes" for the rest of life’s journey…Trent Tucker
According to student leader: those who don’t fail in higher ed didn’t try hard enough (or party enough) #stlhe2012Megan Fitzgibbons
Beautifully elegant – Those who did not fail, did not try hard enough – we need to inspire failure in order to succeed – #stlhe2012Natasha Kenny
These students are AWESOME #STLHE2012 Asked for audience participation and says, "I know you hate it when students don’t put up their handsJoanne Fox
These students are brilliant! Emphasize the importance of metacognitive learning within the curriculum #stlhe2012Natasha Kenny
#stlhe2012 "it is better done than said" — Selena on experiential learningTrent Tucker
#stlhe2012 Johanna on the future of PSE: "nurture critical thinking"Trent Tucker
Johanna (articulate student!): one goal of academic enterprise should be to question the status quo and hegemonic structures #stlhe2012Megan Fitzgibbons
#stlhe2012 student suggests CSL and prof who uses old reading list just says yes. Sweet fantasy. Love itBilly Strean
Student mental health on the agenda at #stlhe2012 student panel. Thank you, Mimi! #destigmatize http://bit.ly/PIBflZChristine Adam
If you think education is expensive just try ignorance. student voices heard #STLHE2012Joanne Fox
Tell your students to bring their hearts to class, not just their brains #stlhe2012Natasha Kenny
Wonderful to hear fluently bilingual students. #STLHE2012 Sorel
Always impressed by how articulate and vibrant 3M student fellows are #STLHE2012Jaymie Koroluk
Hearing from students was the perfect way to end the conference. Thank you for the honesty and challenge of your words. #stlhe2012veebs
Student panel = fantastic way to end the #stlhe2012 conference. Agree that more students should be in on the conversation!EDC
Similarly, you’ll notice that I’ve embedded tweets into this post using twitter’s new built-in embed tool, which is easier than the now-defunct web app called Blackbird Pie. There is still a Blackbird pie wordpress plugin but I don’t see any advantage using the plugin over the built-in tool.
embedding tweets
I guess my main concern is the lack of control you have over that content. You are only linking to it and if the owner deletes the tweet or twitter comes up with some Murdoch monetizing scheme and changes our access or terms, then we will no longer have the content at all.
But it sure does look pretty and it is very functional while it still works.
That brings us to wonder about If This Then That, the magical-do-anything-you-can-think-of with just about any tool that has an API.
I browsed through existing recipes and not surprisingly, someone has set up the simple template to capture tweets with a particular hash tag into Evernote.
If This Then That: Twitter to Evernote
Authorize both your twitter account and your Evernote account, set up your own parameters and you are set to go. The only trouble is that it doesn’t seem to be able to capture tweets from the past.
Since I started this experiment after the end of STLHE, it’s fairly useless in capturing anything about that conference after the fact.
But with 20,000 K-12 educators descending on San Diego right now for National Educational Computing Conference ISTE12 I have a very active hash tag to experiment with, which will definitely be a test of the robustness of this application.
As suggested in the recipe, I created a public #ISTE12 notebook in Evernote. There were other options for archiving, including avatar, which might make the notebook more visually stimulating but I’m going for simplicity first time out. The sheer volume of tweets may cause some kind of complications but let’s push this to the boundaries, right?
So far after 12 hours there have been 566 tweets. But the conference hasn’t actually started yet so we’ll see what happens after a few days.
Shared Evernote notebook capturing #ISTE12 tweets
What are your thoughts? Any other tools you use for archiving all the wonderful things said and done at conferences? How does this aid your reflection (if at all)?
Camp is now over (see the final story. If you are craving an experience like this, head over to ds106 and see how to participate. For more on the Summer of Magic Macguffin, see.....
