Once again, I forget what week it is…I think it’s week 4….It’s so easy to lose track of time while in this class since the weeks tend to fly by. I may not know what numeric week this was, but I DO know that it was my favorite week thus far, AUDIO WEEK!

Cohosting on DS106 Radio

First of all, I LOVED cohosting on Ds106 Radio with Nancy on Monday! I was a bit scared of being live on the air where anything could happen, but I calmed myself down enough to speak clearly. We had the chance to share our experiences with ds106 thus far; our favorite assignments, our weaknesses, our strengths, our interactions with other students, and our complaints. There were approximately 10 people listening to us, and I learned how a good amount of DS106 students were not even in Virginia, or in this country for that matter! I found the special guest, Grant Potter (inventor of DS106 Radio), to be very informative in the discussion about how audio could be a huge part of digital storytelling. He really knew his stuff! During the discussion on digital stories within videogames, I explained how when we play videogames the game’s environment is not the only thing that governs our gameplay experience, but also the atmosphere of the room we’re playing in could also contribute. For example, playing sinister games like (Amnesia) in a brightly lit classroom is not the same as playing it alone in your apartment at night. It was so much fun to not only join in on a topic that sparked my interests, but to also get my feet wet experiencing what it’s like to be live on the air. This summer I am going to be an intern at the Q94 radio station in Richmond producing and editing radio commercials, but I may also have the chance to be live on the air with the station in the future. I was glad that I had this opportunity with Ds106 Radio, but the only part of our broadcast that I was disappointed at was the horrible timing of my apartment’s fire drill that caused me to miss the rest of the show! I re-listened l to it eventually, but man I wish I coulda been there!

Ira Glass and Jad Abumrad

Since this week was the intro to audio storytelling, it was very appropriate to first learn about the building blocks of an amazing story. I watched radio gurus, Ira Glass and Jad Abumrad, explain their views on audio storytelling. Glass’ video leaned more toward the structure of the story and creating it while Abumrad spoke more of connecting with the audience and painting mental pictures together. I felt that both of these men knew what they were talking about and obviously had enough radio experience under their belts to lead others in the right direction.

 This American Life: “Getting Away With It”

After watching Glass and Abumrad’s videos and had acquired an idea of how radio stories are structured, I began listening to the audio story “Getting Away With It” featured on This American Life. As I listened I mentally noted the radio techniques being used to bring the story to life. I felt bad that I couldn’t apply the techniques to the last story in the episode because I just couldn’t get into it.

Radio Bumper and 5 Sound Story

These assignments were single-handedly the best this semester (so far at least) and I really enjoyed doing them. The Radio Bumper was my favorite of the two because it gave me some practice producing radio commercials, which, as I stated before, I plan to be doing this summer. I created this by mimicking the structure of of my hometown’s radio bumpers. I threw in the random Tiny Tina line (which I voiced) because it was previously being discussed on Ds106 Radio on Monday, to the point where she somehow appeared on Twitter to haunt us.

The Sound Story assignment confused me at first because I had no idea that the content had to be new material. At first I used a sound story that I had created last year for a Umw video contest (which didn’t win, sadly) that contained 19 sounds relating to the life of a Umw student. When I learned that I had to make something new, I created a story recounting me trying to learn how to play an instrument when I was younger. This one only had 5 sounds as opposed to the previous 19.

Daily Creates

Acrostic Poem with Article of Clothing
http://tdc.ds106.us/writings/lost-then-found/
Too Late
http://tdc.ds106.us/writings/too-late-2/
Hum First Memory
http://tdc.ds106.us/tdc396/
Retitle a Movie
http://www.flickr.com/photos/63506605@N08/8452295248/

This one was my favorite this week.

Another week, another week of amazing projects done by the DS106 prodigies. I take the comments that have been posted my blog to the heart because they address how I have the potential to be something great later in life. (I wont let you all down!) Overall I had a blast this week with audio! I’ve trained myself to be completely calm and collected when in front of a microphone, so much so that now it just comes naturally to not be embarrassed by my deep, boyish voice. There were more assignments than last week, but I didn’t care because they were based on hobbies that I do almost every day. The only negative thing that I could come up with is the fact that the Daily Creates are becoming more of a “rush job.”I don’t know…I used to love Daily Creates at first, but now stacking them on top of other things we’re supposed to do throughout the week, plus the assignments we’re doing in our other classes, is making them more tedious. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy creating things like these, but I wish I had the time to spend more time on them and make them a bit more elaborate; like the ones I created the first week. I could do SO much more with them!

And so ends the DS Weekly Hurricane (this is the name I’ve come up with because the assignments roll in like ferocious storms at the beginning of the week and die off at the end, leaving a beautiful sunbeam of accomplishment.)