This week in DS 106, we learned about Audio Storytelling. I’m not going to lie, at first I was a little intimidated after I read the week 4 agenda and checklist {which by the way is AMAZING and I don’t know what I would do without each week’s checklist}. But then, it got a little better as the week went on and I completed each assignment.

One thing we had to do was listen to the audio pros. Jad Abumrad’s video proved to be true in all aspects. He talked about how, through radio, we paint our OWN picture. When we watch TV, we picture what the director wants us to picture. This lets our imaginations run wild, which according to him, is what keeps the radio alive. Ira Glass’ videos on storytelling were filled with great “nuggets” that inspired me. I remembered his words throughout the week and I think they had something to do with the reason my “audio anxiety” lessened. One thing he said was about the importance in sequencing sounds. When he talked about this, I though of horror movies and their scary sounds. You know something is eventually going to happen by the build up and sequence of scary sounds.

Another thing Ira said was about the shape of stories. Last week, we learned about Kurt Vonnegut’s view on shapes of the story. This week, Ira talked about how you keep people watching/listening by throwing questions out and answering them along the way. But the MOST inspiring thing {to me} that Ira said was about how everyone goes through a stage where they feel their work is not “up-to-par”, that’s normal. He said that if you are feeling that way and you want to close the gap, the best thing that you can do is to do more work. Practice makes perfect. He also said that it will help if you have a deadline. So, all week I thought about how doing more audio work shouldn’t be intimidating because that’s the only way that I’m going to get better. Also, having a deadline {for the class, Sunday at midnight but I try for Saturday mornings} helps too – and not just with storytelling or audio work, but for every class!

After watching the videos, I wondered if I could detect some audio techniques. I watched This American Life, episode 476; What Doesn’t Kill You. Overall, I thought the story that this episode conveyed was well told. Ira Glass used many techniques that helped build to the drama and suspense of the stories. The stories were interesting and the audio techniques used just added to this factor. You can read more about what I thought about this episode in my Storytime on Air post.

This week, I listened to the DS radio show for the first time! How appropriate, during audio week. I had a great experience listening in even though I listened to the archive show and not live. I still felt like I was live. When Professor Levine said “someone is typing and it’s loud” and I thought it could have been me tweeting! Read my blog post about my whole DS radio experience! I also inserted a new DS radio widget on my side bar. See? —> pretty nifty, huh?

The first audio assignment I did was the sound effect story. This was fun to do because I liked being creative. I could make a story about anything!! The sky was my limit! What do you think I chose for my story to be about? Well, you will have to just see for yourself.

The second audio assignment that I chose was to create a radio bumper for the DS 106 radio show. How fun would it be to be listening to the radio and hear MY bumper?? I knew this would be fun because I was excited to use my voice and act like a real radio DJ! It was very fun – check it out! This assignment really made me appreciate the bumpers that I hear on the radio now. I kind of enjoy when a song ends for the small chance that the station will play a bumper!

I actually did another audio assignment {because at first, I thought we had to pick two from the assignment bank} the extra one I did was to imitate some kind of weather. I clicked “try a random one” on the audio assignment page because I couldn’t pick one from the bank. You can see all about my experience and what weather I chose to imitate in my blog post. Yes, I am going to leave you with the suspense so you can read my blog post about it! I guess doing three audio assignments really reinforces what I learned from Ira Glass’ video; practice will eventually makes perfect.

I know I’ve probably said this a million times before but I seriously cannot get enough of the Daily Creates. When I see a new prompt on Twitter, {because I follow @ds106dc and you should too, especially if you’re in this class} I get so excited to read and do it! You can check out my blog post about this week’s Daily Creates as well as my past Daily Creates {if you’re just tuning in}.

My comment group members are SO awesome!! I listened to Amber’s radio bumper before I made mine and I was a little intimidated at first {because she’s a pro, nbd}. But then I read her post and it gave me a little confidence. I hopefully gave another group member some confidence by posting this comment quoting Ira Glass when he talked about feeling your work isn’t “up-to-par” with other people’s work. Alas, practice makes perfect and I have a feeling we will get a lot of practice through the semester! The feedback that I got back from my group members was all very positive. Sarah said she loved my new chevron background {yes, this is something I spent a lot of time on this week and it wasn’t even an assignment – whoops!} and she talked about how my broken ring, from last week, kind of made her sad. Even though it was broken due to being worn too much, my picture evoked an emotional response from her. This is what storytelling is supposed to do, so I loved hearing that from her. I also went to new blogs this week.

Also, I loved listening to Amber’s Sound Story! If you haven’t heard it yet, you should definitely check it out!!! Jennifer’s blog post about the radio bumpers was very helpful for me {since I had such a hard time with LAME!} I even commented and asked her a question and she was very quick to comment back. Something that Micaela included in her storytelling blog post got me thinking. She said that storytelling brings people together. Another element I forgot! I can’t wait to see how my view on what digital storytelling will be at the end of the semester!!! Also, these bloggers Brooke and Brittany, had a lot of neat ideas and cute blog layouts! It was nice to look at some more DS 106 work and get to know more people in this class. I am going to do this every week so hopefully, I can get around to checking out everyone’s blog!

I love the comment groups – seriously good idea! But I also like the DS love we got going on in Twitter. When someone has a question, a fellow DS 106-er will try to help out in any way they can. This is just an example of what I’m talking about:

@krisavball08 did you copy the embed link on soundcloud? That worked for me yesterday. And that copy that into your ‘HTML’ section #ds106

— Kelsie LaSalata (@kelsielasalata) February 8, 2013

@kelsielasalata putting it in the HTML section worked! Thank you so much! #ds106

— Karissa Mary Marie (@krisavball08) February 8, 2013

@karenatsharon did you add it to the tdc396 group on soundcloud? Here is the link to the group soundcloud.com/groups/tdc396

— Karissa Mary Marie (@krisavball08) February 8, 2013

This week, I learned that audio work isn’t as intimidating as I thought it was going to be. It’s actually kind of fun. {WHAT? I can’t believe I just said that}. I really did learn a lot about audio and how it’s not as bad as I thought it was. It actually tells a story just like pictures and videos do. I’m glad that watching Ira’s video was the first thing I did this week because it really helped a lot. However, I do wish that we had a post deadline, not a weekly summary deadline, but maybe a daily create or one assignment from that week. That way, when we are commenting, we don’t have to comment from last week’s work. I felt like I did that a lot this week and I didn’t like it because I was in the audio mindset. Now that I no longer have a lot of audio anxiety {just LAME anxiety}, I am excited to see the endless possibilities of the rest of the semester’s assignments! Adios amigos!

P.S- Also, this week, I made a new ‘Menu’ on my ‘Main Menu’ titled Links. I did this because I found myself having to constantly go to find these links and I wanted to keep them all in one place. Maybe somebody will find them helpful and then I will feel good.