cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by Phil Romans
Still back logging the Slices of Life audio reflections on my first round of teaching ds106, parsing back here to the last week of February, 2012.
We start first after class on Monday Feb 27. Today’s class was easy because I did not have to do anything- this was time set aside for work on their group audio projects, creating a radio show (see work for week 7).
I am no accepting excuses for not turning in work by the Sunday deadline or missing class. One student who said he missed last class “because his roommates asked him to dinner”. I said wow, it must have been some awesome dinner, where did you go? He said, “The dining hall”
Me: “You missed my class for dining hall food? Seriously? You have to show up, you gotta be there (for life)”
Each group has to turn in audio for shows the Monday after spring break, but to keep them on task, I am requiring for Wednesday’s class, that they need to prepare a 15 second bumper, one commercial and 5 minute preview and add the links to a class wiki page
I only id one bit of leading, a quick demo on using the Audacity envelope tool for adjusting levels, something I thought was key to dealing with multiple tracks. I did not have this video at the time, but it will be useful going forward
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2J2iSfWaDs
After this, the bulk of class was the students working in their groups, I just walked around and listened- or just got out of the way, and all groups zeroed in on their show idea by the end of class. Activity level was high.
Five minutes before the end of class, I called out each group to say on the spot what their show was about. These are the show topics:
- Call in show on embarrassing stories and pet peeves (sort of a vox populi?)
- Science jokes
- Post apocalypse radio show
- Call in show from the wild
- people sharing bucket lists
- advice from drunk people (done before, I warned them to make it structured!)
For me, this was a welcome break from having to design class/activities. For them, they got to do stuff the whole class.
——- cut to Wednesday ——– 8< -------------- I thought I was recording, but the red button was not clicked; and even after redoing, Siri seems to think while talking that I want her, and she turns off my recorder app. Amateur hour(s). But it is a rainy day, the sky is crying. Yet this is a giddy slice! This was another great class for me, this day of the leap year, where the time rounding errors yields us every 4 years, a day to lump it together for extra time. Tonight I will upload their bumpers to ds106radio (they are still there as of May 2012) Best week I have taught, because they are doing stuff.
Might do a bit of singing in the rain, I am so excited to see the energy in class tonight.
