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.

Student Radio Club & This Class

It looks like the Student Radio Club at TUJ is nearly ready to begin streamed programming on the internet. I'm trying to arrange to have Trent and Sunny visit our class to show us how to use the equipment. Hopefully, something will be announced either this week or next.

There are two things I'd like folks to consider in relation to this club and possible projects in this class. Here the are in question form:

• Would anyone be interested in planning and hosting/producing a show during class time?
• Would anyone be interested in helping to build a music library by searching for royalty free music, making arrangements with the artists to play the music on the station, and compile a music library from such music?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, then please leave a comment on this blog or get in touch with me by email so we can form teams to get something done.

Scott T. & D.C. score some blue points

5 points for DC:

10 points for Scott

Well done, gentleman. As mentioned in class, 5 points will be awarded for each student to use iPadio before class on 2/25.

Congrats Mr. Lister

Just like that, 15 blue points.



Thanks Brian.

Sunday Field Report - TUJscottie

A Request

This week representatives from the R20 blog and podcast will be visiting our campus to meet with and interview TUJ students. The R20 program is run by and targets university students in Japan.

They would like to discuss why you chose to come to TUJ and what your impressions of the experience have been.

There has been a specific request to meet with student from our Introduction to Radio class. Please get in touch with me via comment to this post, twitter or email if you'd be interested in participating.

The interviews will take place on the afternoons of February 19th (Friday) and 22nd (Monday).

NOTE: It seems to me that the R20 program might be a suitable topic for a term project for anyone who has not selected one yet.

Now boarding: The Blue Point Express

A train load of blue points have been offered thus far this semester. There are still quite a few unclaimed opportunities. This weekend's iPadio phone-cast report is such a chance.

Additionally, there have been several times when your thoughts or opinions were requested as comments in this blog. First commenters to such a request always get a handful of blue points.

020910 - Lesson Agenda

Here's what's on tap for tonight's lesson:

• Getting started: administrivia, questions & requests
• Chapter 4 discussion (Kaoru S.)
• Listen to and discuss student work: Lab 5 (Jessie, Chris, Rie, DC, and Brian)
• Of possible interest: Ryerson in the Moment - Journalism students in Canada using social media tools to track and report news
• Tracking your term project subject (subscribing to rss feeds for Twitter and Google searches in Google Reader or Netvibes)
• Student production time

Upcoming Deadlines and Dates

Here's are some date you'll want to keep in mind:

• 2/16 - Quiz 2 (rescheduled)
• 2/18 - Term Project proposal due
• 2/23 - PSA1 due
• 3/4 - Second Life "Conversation Parter" test lesson
• 3/16 - PSA 2 due
• 3/18 - Quiz 3
• 4/1 - Radio News feature due

Phoning One In

As promised, I attempted to demonstrate the iPadio service while telling the class about the locative media project for the third audio journal assignment. I imagine it was an unfamiliar sight to see the prof whip out a cell phone, make a call and start talking into the phone as whilst attempting to conduct a lecture. Hopefully the embedded recording below will justify this seemingly daft classroom practice on pedagogical grounds.

Lesson Outline and Audio update - 020410

The embedded audio update below was created a cell phone call to the micropodcasting service called iPadio. We will be using iPadio for our 3rd audio journal task in this class, so I thought such an update would be a good way to introduce the tool to the class.

In the recording I talked briefly about the journal assignment. I also mentioned the lesson plan for tonight's class.

For those unable or unwilling to listen to my audio update, here is a text version of the lesson plan:

• Introduce our observer
• Chapter review (Kaoru S.)
• Preview of Audio Journal 3 project with handout
• Visit to Second Life radio stations and discussion of upcoming "Conversation Partner" project
• Student production time

During the next two Tuesday lessons (no class Thursday, Feb. 11), we will be listening to your Lab 5 productions and discussing them as a whole class. Please make a point to listen to each of your classmates' work before coming to class.

---

NOTE: The review of chapter 4 of the textbook with Kaoru S. has been postponed until February 9th. Everyone else's chapter outline assignments have been pushed back one lesson as well.

---

Tonight's Lesson - 020210

Here is what's on tap for tonight's lesson:

• Chapter 3 discussion (Kaoru F.)
• Overview of the second Lab Handout
• Quick Tour of some radio stations in Second Life
• Follow up of GarageBand demonstration for music bed lab projects
• Student production time (I will meet with students individually to discuss your self introductions from previous labs during this time)

Audio Links for Lab 6

As mentioned on the second Lab Handout, you have a choice to either produce an introduction of a classmate or an analysis of one of the four recordings listed below for your sixth and final lab assignment.

Too Beautiful to Live

Originally a broadcast on Seattle's KIRO radio station, TBTL has been regularly distributed as a podcast since September 2009. The excerpt is about 11 minutes long and is the opening of TBTL's January 21st show.

• TBTL Web Site
• TBTL Wikipedia entry
• Audio excerpt from January 21, 2010

The Best Show with Tom Scharpling on WFMU

The Best Show is a weekly radio show on New Jersey's WFMU. The excerpt features the first phone call from Philly Boy Roy who has since become a regularly appearing character on the show. It comes from The Best Show Gems podcast and was originally aired in 2003.

• Friends of Tom: The Official Best Show on WFMU web site
• Audio excerpt from 2003

Radio Unnameable with Bob Fass on WBAI

As mentioned in class, Bob Fass is a pioneer in free form radio. He started at WBAI, in New York city, 50 years ago. This excerpt features the opening 20 minutes of his 3 hour show which aired on January 15, 2010.

• Radio Unnameable on WBAI's web site
• Audio excerpt from January 15, 2010

Joe Frank: Film

Joe Frank started at WBAI in the early 1970s. He has been a producer of unique radio dramas and monologs for more than 25 years. The excerpt is a selection from The Decline of Spengler produced for NPR Playhouse in 1983. It is about 13 minutes long.

• Joe Frank: Official Web Site
• Wikipedia entry on Joe Frank
• Podcast featuring selected works of Joe Frank
• Audio Excerpt from 1983

Looking at Second Life

The video below features some of the interesting locations in the 3D virtual world called Second Life. Though Second Life is not currently a component of this course, it will be in future semesters. I would like to beg your indulgence to spend a bit of course time looking at what SL has to offer for an online university radio station. For me it seems to provide many opportunities.

Also, I've been asked to have this class participate in a Second Life project. I would like to discuss this with students during Thursday's lesson (2/4).

Until then, have a look at some of the possibilities available "inworld":