Stories told & retold (with a bit of magic)

Michael Hoberman’s students are telling stories, and now they can be retold again and yet again, with a just a wee bit of audio magic. So, how did he and his students accomplish this bit of technological wizardry? Well, truth be told, the technological aspects were quite easy to master, and the real magic is focused on the telling of the stories.

So, how did this project begin? On a dark and stormy Wednesday, Michael called into the CTL with a challenge. He wondered if there were an easy method to record his students and make the audio files available for listening. I took the request, and after a bit of thought and a quick conversation with Sean, we conjured up a plan to help make this happen.

We determined that we would just three things: a laptop (got it, Michael), a microphone (need it, borrowed from Mike Leamy), and the Audacity audio editing software (needed it, but downloaded from Sourceforge). By Thursday Michael and I were able to meet for fifteen minutes in the Center to set up the software and run a quick audio capture test. (Open Audacity, select start button to record and stop button when done recording. It's that easy!) With the recording process established, the last step would be the conversion to mp3 and the upload to Blackboard. We waited until the next week for that.

Intrigued? Want to know what happened next? Of course, our story has a happy ending, but you will have to wait for the next installment in our series of “Stories told & retold (with a bit of magic).”

Clair