How about this?

A recent twitter re-tweet from radiointhetrees by Radio23 introduced me to a new branch of the High School for Recording Arts based in Portland, Oregon. It looks like exciting things are happening with new media and education in my home state.

I was surprised to learn that HSRA has been around for nearly 15 years. The first such school was established in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1998. Below is a description of the program:

HSRA is a project-based, public charter school that operates within and around a professional recording studio. Students earn time in the studio by completing academic projects in the core learning areas of English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. HSRA encourages students who may have dropped out or been expelled from traditional schools to complete their diplomas through a love of music.

The documentary above is from the HSRA program in Los Angeles, California.

Practical Exam Update

One last detail for your practical exams. Please place the Practical Exam folder you created (with your name on the folder) with all of the required files and folders in the folder title Practical Exam on the X-server. I've highlighted the folder name you should place your work in in red.

I thought I mentioned this at our last meeting. There will be 10 minute grace period at the beginning of class for students to transfer work to this folder.

Practical Exam Guidelines

Before the next class meeting (4/6), please produce a short segment in which you back-announce one song, engage your audience with an amusing or informative bit, announce the name of your show or station, and introduce the next song song. You are free to use any music you choose. Please "telescope" the song so that only the final 30 seconds of the first song and the first 30 second of the second song can be heard. In between these two segments will be you as a radio DJ. Your spoken segment should be longer than one minute and not more than 2 and a half minutes.

The entire "Practical Exam" will be produced in Audacity. Though the segments won't be recorded as a "live" show, you should be able to make it sound as though everything is happening as we here it.

I will be evaluating this "Practical Exam" in terms of production quality and "on air" delivery. "On air" delivery includes both the sound of your audio and what you say (the sort of information a DJ should mention every time the microphone is open). Try to be entertaining and informative. You don't need to submit a script for this, but it might be a good idea to prepare an outline of things you'd like to cover during your "stop set."

Please place a folder entitled "Yourname_PE" on the X-serve. In that folder include an mp3 of your recording and all of the Audacity project and data files and folders (recall my demonstration of the correct way to store Aucacity project files and folders). Files submitted after the start of class on 4/6 will be considered late and marked down accordingly.

Looking for Music?

Here are some sites where you might be able to find music:

1. Free Music Archive
2. Internet Archive: Music & Archives
3. Opsound
   

Sign the dotted line

As the end of the semester approaches, I'd like to request that each of you create a Google document in which you list all of the work you intend to do for the rest of the semester. Please base it on our discussion last week and the document I've shared with the class. I would like the document you create and share with me to serve several purposes. Think of it as a contract between you and me for the work you are committing to do for the remainder of the semester, as channel we can use to communicate about your progress toward meeting your goals, and as a place for you to reflect upon and evaluate the work you've done.

At a minimum, I'd expect you to update the document once a week. In your updates please list work you've done, audio you've listened to, plans for writing, recording and production, and any questions or comments you have for me related to your work in this course. The level of involvement and effort you put in to communicating with me through this document will have a significant bearing on your grade for the course.

Looking ahead, a final component of this document/contract will be a reflective self-assessment in which you evaluate the work you've done and how successful you were in meeting your originally listed goals. In a real sense, you will be grading your own work. 

Please prepare and share your draft version of this contract/document before the weekend.

Audio Feature Exemplars

We will be talking about audio feature stories in class in preparation for the upcoming assignment. Until then, please pay a visit to the following sites to find some examples to listen to.

National Public Radio's All Things Considered
BBC's Newshour
National Public Radio's This American Life
National Radio Project's Making Contact

The Yes Men

I'm always late to learn about these things. Looks like this film made a bit of noise in 2009:

The Yes Men Fix The World film has an official website and the team can be followed on twitter.

Something interesting for those attracted to mischief in the service of social change is the Fix the World Challenge for students. Work of contest winners will appear on an upcoming Yes Med DVD.