It must be bluntly obvious that I am infected with ds106 (for readers lacking exposure to the virus or the ability to reach for The Google, ds106 is the open Digital Storytelling course now in its second year of evolution, spreading out of the University of Mary Washington. With MOOC Hysteria continuing an epic rage through the public consciousness, I waver from mild annoyance to blissful yawning to often… “meh”. Today, I could not be more pleased to see that ds106 is not on a list of MOOCs — assuming that it does not “conform to the original format developed by George Siemens and [Stephen Downes]“. The structure and modality of ds106 seems to remain a data point of its own. Besides I’ve never really wanted to be part of things that are so “conforming”. I did have some thoughts about the image Stephen did share with his OLDaily post ...

For the second audio assignment this week for our UMW students in ds106, they are asked to get their toes wet in some audio editing by the assignment for creating a bumper for ds106 radio. Just in case you do not know, ds106 is the only online course, massive or not, that has its own radio station. Take that ya big money MOOCs! As defined in the ‘pedia, a bumper is: a brief announcement, usually two to 15 seconds that can contain a voice over, placed between a pause in the program and its commercial break, and vice versa. The host, the program announcer or a continuity announcer states the title (if any) of the presentation, the name of the program, and the broadcast or cable network, though not necessarily in that order. That gives a lot of room to play with. I played around with a mix of stuff ...

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by caterpiya In the spirit of Doing the Work We Assign Our ds106 Students, I just made my own Sound Effect Story- the assignment as stated: Tell a story using nothing but sound effects. There can be no verbal communication, only sound effects. Use at least five different sounds that you find online. The story can be no longer than 90 seconds. I’ve done this one twice before, one a story of keys another of something that might have happened while walking in the woods. For this one I tried to do something that has an action and maybe an ambiguous ending. If you own a pet, its likely you have something that happened when someone left a door open. And I have my own tale of a dog that was lost… For anyone that has dealt with a lost ...