On Saturday, March 7th, a dozen of us gathered at a computer lab on Oakland’s campus for the MBWP’s first advanced institute on podcasting. I’m calling this the “first” advanced institute on podcasting because I, for one, am already looking forward to the next one.
Everyone brought along small pieces of writing; some of these works were composed during the Invitational Summer Institute; some were
Lori Ostergaard
written during our long, snowy winter; and some were composed frantically the night before. Everyone munched bagels while I provided the participants with a short introduction on using Audacity, a free audio-editing program. Once the short introduction to editing audio essays was done, everyone hit the ground running, with paper and microphone in hand, to record their works, mix in music and sound effects, and turn their “dead tree technology” texts into multi-layered audio texts.
The only thing I regret about this institute is that we didn't have a chance to listen to our creations before the workshop came to a close. So we’re going to be hosting these works of audio art on our MBWP home page over the next few months. Be sure to drop by the website regularly to check out the latest podcast. Last month we posted Laura Gabrion's charming story about sledding with her children and wishing she could freeze that one perfect moment with them. And this month we've added two of Mary Cox's poems: "Spring" and "Today I Met Someone Who Knows You."
Eventually we’ll run out of these new podcasts to feature on the website, so be on the lookout for our next podcasting institute this fall. Also on the agenda for fall will be a couple of digital storytelling workshops where participants will learn to combine audio narrative, text, music, photos, and effects to create a video narrative.
Lori Ostergaard is the Technology Liaison for the MBWP. She is also an Assistant Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Oakland University where she teaches first-year writing, digital cultures, and teaching writing with new media.
Created by Lori Ostergaard (ostergaa@oakland.edu) on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 Modified by Lori Ostergaard (ostergaa@oakland.edu) on Monday, April 20, 2009 Article Start Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009
