• I always dread audio assignments. I like listening to music, but have never spent much time on editing or creating new things with it. However, it wasn’t that bad. Audacity (which I used for every assignment I tried) makes it a bit easier to edit music. This week I tried to do some of the more difficult assignments. I did two three stars and two two stars. I noticed the assignment bank for the audio section was smaller than it was for visual or design. I felt there wasn’t much to choose from and I had to opt to do assignments I normally would have passed over for something else.

Chipmunk’d– 3 stars

Character Calls– 2 stars

Context– 3 stars

Contest Nobody could win– 2 stars

• For the daily creates, I created a separate post since there were so many

• Finding recycled media was easy for me. I had quite a few left over from the design and visual assignments. I actually tried at least 3 other assignments but they didn’t work out. The first one is called “Create an Album Cover using the Links Given”. It was for the assignment Album Cover. I didn’t like the results of this project and found another assignment that I liked better. The next one was called “Awful Picture of Sunglasses for turning an everyday object into extraordinary. It was for the assignment Everyday Object. I did end up completing this project but with a different picture. The next was “Australian Flag not used in A Place I’ve Never Been”. I collected pictures for the assignment A Place I’ve Never Been but didn’t like the way this picture looked in the final product so I took it out. The last one was “Unfinished window for Your Dreams out the Window”. It was for the assignment Your Dreams out the window. I couldn’t get it to look right with the window so I found an assignment I liked better.

• Finally, our radio show is complete and turned in! I feel that we have been working on this forever and I’m extremely satisfied with our final product. I really liked our idea of a RoadTrip Radio and our approach on how we put things together. I feel most people listen to the radio in the car so this fits perfectly. We also didn’t want to do just a boring story so we added in funny characters and sound effects. Our character’s points of view were also added into the story.

When we were discussing our topics, Kiersten mentioned that a possibility of a road trip drama could be cool. We all fell in love with the idea! We used just a canvas messaging system at first to communicate, but then a google doc was created and this was how we communicated our ideas from then on. I feel as an online class it was a bit more difficult to communicate. You don’t have that in class time to collaborate, get to know the people in your group, or set up meeting times. Also, checking emails and the google doc consistently for everyone was a bit of  a challenge. We eventually did meet in person as a group to put the final product of our show together. That, to me, was the easiest part. We had fun getting into character and recording our pieces.

I tried to help organize and and get meetings times together. I am typically a very organized person so I wouldn’t say that is out of my comfort zone. When we met in person, we all came up with the script together. Everyone contributed evenly to it to develop each character to fit into the story. We also decided on sound effects and where to put them during this time. I downloaded a few, but I also had many sound effects already downloaded onto my computer which was convenient.  I signed up for our show time and was going to do the skype call, however my skype is not working and had to opt out of it. I also tried to post updates about our progress and tweet about it.

Just met with my #ds106 radio crew! #RadioRoadTrip

— Brittany Parsons (@bpars915) October 18, 2012

I think our show accomplished exactly what we wanted. It’s funny and I feel that it will hold the listener’s attention. They will be on their toes about what will happen next and if the family will ever come together as a whole! I also really like how we added in each character’s thoughts in the beginning and the end. I feel that adds a bit more than just dialogue. I believe it really does allow the listener to connect with each character a bit more.

In the beginning of audio, I was not thrilled to be working with it. Audio is not in my comfort zone and seems to be that it would be difficult to work with. I have had my ups and downs with it, but feel now that after the audio assignments and putting the radio show together I have a basic knowledge of how it works and can do simple things. I am not a genius with audio, but I do believe that doing these assignments has improved my knowledge and understand about it.

•  EXTRA CREDIT: I’ve noticed that I had been slacking on commenting, so when this extra credit opportunity was opened up I took it head on. I was excited about it! I actually commented more than 7 times just because it was interesting looking at other people’s ideas. I have also been trying to tweet more.