Incorporating Sonic Media in your Classroom: Resources

By Agustina Maria Checa and Zahra Khalid

This list of resources has been compiled with the aim of offering a starting point for including sonic media into your syllabi for both undergraduate and graduate courses. It includes tips for instructors on getting started, steps to creating a podcasting assignment, resources on other sonic media-based assignments, our software recommendations, and a compilation of web-based sources of sonic media content, to help your students succeed in their sound-based assignments.

Tips on getting started..

• Help your students succeed in their sound assignments by offering tips, tools, and support
• Share examples of sonic media you would like them to draw inspiration from
• Share resources on how to make their own (links from this compilation are a good start!)
• Be specific in your guidance and expectations
• Be mindful of ways to keep the exercise accessible for differently-abled students. If this isn’t possible, allow for alternate assignment options for students who may not be able to access or produce sonic media

Designing podcasting assignments

For a podcasting assignment, as with any assignment, be clear with your expectations. It may help to provide examples of podcasts or sound compositions at the outset for students to draw on. For assignment creation, it is best to use a scaffolding approach: break up the topic generation, research, and scriptwriting into separate deliverables. Scriptwriting itself can be further broken down into more than one assignment, and can be a constructive assignment in itself if, for whatever reason, your students stop short of creating a podcast. These steps present an opportunity for students to practice research, synthesis, articulating ideas legibly, editing/re-editing, reflection, and group feedback, while offering instructors various moments to provide feedback and guide student work. Writing for audio is different from composing a formulaic essay, allowing students to engage in non-traditional forms of writing (such as writing a podcasting script), which can, in turn, help them find their scholarly voices.

Consider adding low-stakes or ungraded assignments that complement the exercise, but that give students a break from topical/substantive research. For example, they can: listen to a podcast for inspiration; find audio files/sounds that would complement the assignment; reflect on what they like about a podcast they are already familiar with.

Some considerations for creating a podcast follow. These can guide your approach to scaffolding a podcast assignment:

• Think about a podcast that you would like to use as a template and deconstruct its structure. Guiding questions could include: How was the topic introduced? How did the host use music in the podcast? How much time did the host spend on the introduction, body, and closing? Do you think the podcast was effective in conveying what it intended, as described in the podcast blurb? Why or why not?
• Share these resources on how to create your own podcast
  • A helpful guide to DIY podcasting by NPR
  • Tips on how to record on your smartphone
• Think about the tone, feeling, and aesthetics you would like to include in your podcast.
• Research the topic you are interested in. Identify the most salient information and plan strategies to communicate this information in an engaging and coherent way
• Develop a script
• Gather audio files to support your material
• Create a “bumper” (a short recording that identifies the podcast with signature music or an expression that makes the listeners know what they are tuned into)
• To avoid monotony, add hooks, make up some ads (perhaps about other course topics!)
• If you center marginalized people in your podcast, make sure to do it in ethical ways
• Add a written reflection. What were you satisfied/happy with in the podcasting process? What are things you would do differently next time? What did you learn from this experience? Having students listen to each other’s podcasts and give feedback to each other can be productive for the reflections write-up
• Check out these student stories for inspiration: https://nowherethis.org/

Audio-editing software

Computer-based

• Audacity: free, open source software for audio editing. See the Audacity manual
• GarageBand

Smartphone-based

• Anchor by Spotify
  • Can be used on the web too, signs in using your Spotify credentials.
  • Comes with some sound effects options
  • Music can be added from your Spotify
• GarageBand app
• Alitu (rated best for beginners, comes with a 7-day free trial, then $28/mo)

Audio archives

Free music Archive - free, to download music licensed under Creative Commons

Open music Archive - free, out-of-copyright sound recordings

Freesound - free, Creative Commons licensed sounds

Zaplast - free, for downloading sound effects

Smithsonian Folkways - not free, but awesome archive (you can buy songs for $0.99)

Bandcamp - not free, but artists get most of the money when you buy songs

Websites with soundscapes and soundwalks

• Soundwalking Interactions is an international research project on soundwalking and conversations with listeners
• Sounding Out! blog/journal on sound studies with scholarly pieces that include audio components
• The Center for Global Soundscapes has this submission-based map with different recordings from around the world.
• NYC sound seeker is an interactive sound map of New York City
• Archivo Sonoro is a site that compiles soundscapes and soundwalks across Latin America

Sonic media in the classroom – sample course materials

• A blog with step-by-step guidance on building podcasting assignments using resources from an Africana Studies course at Brown University
• A 2016 syllabus for a course titled “How we listen,” from Dr Jennifer Stoever (at Binghamton University) with soundwalk assignments
• A repository of teaching materials and digital tools for sonic media analysis curated by the Modern Language Association
• An audio assignment bank from the open online digital storytelling course, DS106