Sound Journal 597

Learning Log (Course Reflection)

The most important thing I learned this semester was an understanding and awareness of the significance of sound in any and every environment. I have developed a greater awareness of the sounds within each environment and the impact the soundscape has on people within that environment. We seem to take sound for granted, and now it seems odd to me that sound is most often considered an afterthought in instructional design. I have also developed a greater comfort level for recording sound and editing sound files. Finally, the word “soundscape” has become a part of my vocabulary.

This course has demonstrated that sound is an ever-present teacher, because we are constantly learning about our environment from the sounds within it. I am not a teacher and do not intend on ever being a teacher, but as an instructional designer, I will be able to advocate for the use of sound as an important design element in instructional materials. I will use my new awareness of sound when designing e-courses by incorporating sounds as a design element rather than an “add-on.” I will be attuned to the impact of sound, both within and outside of the e-course, on the user’s learning experience.

All of the assignments in this class were deeply immersed in the Design, Development, and Utilization domains of the AECT standards. For the sound walk, sound map, and soundscape projects, we assessed learner characteristics and matched the instructional activities with those characteristics, established educational goals, designed an instructional message and strategies around those goals, integrated different media and technologies, and produced instructional materials. The activity in which we reviewed and assessed sound-based games and activities gave us some practice in the Evaluation domain.  

In the first module we listened to Julian Treasure’s advice to listen to birdsong every day, so I will end my sound journal with this relaxing two-minute recording of birdsong from my backyard. 

Image by Michael Murphy, http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelwm25/5866627898/

Soundscape Project: Batscape

It always seems to be the case that one of the most difficult aspects of any Ed Tech project is deciding on a suitable topic. I typically choose something related to nature, environmental issues, or animals/wildlife, which generally requires that I do some research. There is certainly no shortage of topics I would like to explore. For my soundscape project, the first decision point was whether to record my own sounds or find them on the web. Since I just completed recording, reviewing, and editing 56 sound files for the sound map project, I decided to try finding sounds for this one.

My “dream” job would involve creating educational exhibits for a museum, science center, or nature center, so I decided to focus on a museum exhibit soundscape. I revisited a topic I used for a WebQuest project in Ed Tech 502: bats. Large populations of cave-dwelling bats are being wiped out by a fungal disease called “white-nose syndrome” in eastern and southern states and the disease is expected to reach Wisconsin soon, so bats have been in the news recently. Bats consume large numbers of mosquitoes and other insect crop pests, so they play an important role in the human ecosystem. Plus, the fact that they use echolocation is pretty cool! Since bat calls are emitted at a higher frequency than humans can hear, it does require some special equipment and knowledge to obtain sound recordings that we can hear. Therefore, I think the topic is fitting for an educational soundscape exhibit.

I love doing research, but it can also be a little maddening. In some cases, the farther you dig, the more uncertain the information can become. My research revealed that Wisconsin has four cave-dwelling bat species, so I needed sound files for those four species. Three of them were fairly easy to find, but a recording of the Eastern pipistrelle proved elusive. Although this species is fairly common in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and there are many species of pipistrelle in the world, it seems that not a whole lot is known about the eastern—and apparently there is a lack of sound recordings too. Then I discovered that the species has even been reclassified—or perhaps is in the process of being reclassified. Some people say it does not belong with the pipistrelles at all and are now calling it the tri-colored bat. The lack of a recording made me temporarily scrap the project, but ultimately I decided to use a “generic” recording of a pipistrelle for my soundscape project. Of course, if I were to actually create a “Batscape” museum exhibit, I would consult with local bat experts to obtain ideal recordings of each species.

The photo below (from the USF&W Service) shows a little brown bat infected with white-nose syndrome.

Onomatopeic Storytelling Activity: The Assembly

As I wrote my onomatopeic story, it continued to evolve (or devolve) through several new directions. I considered the activity as a writing exercise that would require the application of sound-descriptive words to objects or characters that would not normally be associated with those sounds. I started out with a list of sound descriptors typically used for people, and I intended to apply them to inanimate objects in my story. Then I thought I would use those words but apply them to animals. Then I scrapped the list of “human” sound words and compiled words for animal sounds, which I thought I would apply to human behavior. This is what I finally ended up with:

Word Grid

Story: The Assembly
 
Anxious bleating enveloped the assembly as the residents took their seats. The mayor ascended the podium. “Quiet, please!” she brayed into the microphone.

“Yes, quiet,” the proprietor clucked.
 
The din quieted to a whimper, and a few chairs squealed as their occupants shifted uncomfortably. The mayor squinted at her subjects over dim spectacles. “As you all know, we are assembled this evening to consider a proposal by the proprietor,” she whinnied, “for permission to stage a circus.”

The assembly began to crow. “Disgraceful!” the collector squawked. “Outrageous!” the constable yowled.

“Now wait just a minute,” the indignant proprietor squawked. “Our kind has been the subject of this kind of spectacle for hundreds of years. Now it’s time to pay back some of that humility to the HUMANS.”

As the assembly erupted into jeers over this repugnant statement, the wise old professor rose to her feet. The assembly hushed.

“I do not think this troubling proposal concerns the righteousness of exacting humility upon humankind,” she droned. “Rather, I think it is merely a question of entertainment. Who in this assembly would be entertained by a circus of humans?” She scanned the pensive faces. “Without an audience, the show cannot go on,” she concluded.

After a moment of considered silence, the assembly members began to nod and bob their heads in collective agreement.

The proprietor, debased by this resounding rejection, withdrew his proposal and hopped away.

Analysis of Sound-based Activities

I evaluated the following six sound-based activities:

Activity 1: Audio Scavenger Hunt
Resource: http://soundslikestatenisland.com/node/29

The audio scavenger hunt was my favorite activity in the group. This activity inspired me to turn my soundwalk project into an audio scavenger hunt. An audio scavenger hunt can encourage people to be more aware of their environment and can be adapted for many situations, age groups, and time frames. I think this activity uses a mix of educational theories, and the activity can be modified to focus on one theoretical area depending on the desired educational outcome.

Activity 2: Frog Tracker
http://www.exploratorium.edu/frogs/tracker/

Frog Tracker is a solitary computer-based activity in which the user slides the cursor over pictures of frogs within a single image to hear their songs. The user can also click on multiple frogs to make a chorus of frogs. This was fun for about 30 seconds, but the activity did not have much of an educational component, at least as far as frogs are concerned. The site explicitly states that some frogs in the image are not found in the same environments, so the user could create an “unnatural” chorus of frogs that would not exist in nature. Therefore, I think this activity is more useful as an experiment in creating sound than in learning about frog sounds. I think this activity is mostly behavioral with a small component of cognitive constructivism.

Activity 3: Headlands Experiments
http://www.exploratorium.edu/music/exhibits/headlands/index.html

The Headlands Experiments are 20 audio-visual recordings of people who explored sound creation in a fairly limited area north of San Fransisco. The only activity for the user is to listen and watch these short movies of people creating sounds. There is very little activity and not much educational value here. I consider this a strictly behavioral activity. Its greatest value would probably be in inspiring others to explore soundmaking.    

Activity 4: Build a Soundscape
http://www.exploratorium.edu/listen/activities/soundscapes/deploy/activity_soundscapes.php

In this activity, the user can subtract or add from five possible sounds in a soundscape, including a beach scene and a train station scene. It was interesting to try adding and subtracting individual sounds from a soundscape so you could identify the relative contribution of each sound to the soundscape. This activity is largely behavioral, but the concept could be adapted for use in designing soundscapes, which would extend the activity into the cognitive and perhaps social constructivist realms.  

Activity 5: Birdcalls
http://www.exploratorium.edu/listen/activities/doniga/birds/activity_birds.php

This is a straightforward activity that has good educational value for distinguishing the different types of sounds that certain bird species make, including bird songs, calls, and alarms. I would consider this a primarily cognitive-based activity since it requires some retrieval of information and the application of patterns to sound identification.

Activity 6: Engineering Interact (Ocean Odyssey)
http://www.engineeringinteract.org/interact.htm

This game required the user to click through multiple screens of short text and activities activated by the user’s selections, so the game is based on a mix of behavioral and cognitive approaches. The game uses a rather simple but strange storyline and cast of characters as a platform to teach the user about sound. I couldn’t decide what age group the activity was aimed at; the cartoonish artwork and odd storyline seemed more appropriate for younger children than some of the concepts presented in the content.

Sound map and soundwalk

For my soundwalk and sound map assignments, I recorded the sounds that people made while they were observing animals at the zoo. My sound map is located here: http://woices.com/walk/1439

I recorded 56 sound files at the zoo, and I ended up using 15 of those recordings in my sound map. I edited the files for length and tried some other editing functions in Audacity, including fade in/fade out, normalizing, and noise removal, with varying levels of success.

While recording people at the zoo, I heard similar phrases repeated from location to location, and similar discussions from different groups of people at the same location. These were my three favorite moments while recording at the zoo:

1. At the kookaburra exhibit, three women started singing the Kookaburra Song next to me, but they felt silly so their quiet singing just dissolved into giggling.
2. At the capybara exhibit, I heard at least three different people independently call the capybaras “giant guinea pigs,” which pleased me since that’s what I think they look like too.
3. When the male lion roared, the sound could be heard throughout the zoo. The sound was like a siren call, because people went running from all directions to catch a glimpse of the big guy. Thus, the lion’s roar seems to be a soundmark for the zoo.

After hearing so many of the same types of sounds and phrases repeated at the zoo, I decided to turn my soundwalk into an audio scavenger hunt. For the scavenger hunt sounds, I included items such as “person asking ‘what is that?’” and “person mimicking an animal sound.” I think this activity would be fun for a summer camp or summer school class.

While recording people at the zoo, I found myself considering the function of zoos in human communities. I decided that zoos serve many functions other than as a place for people to learn about animals they wouldn’t otherwise be able to see. Zoos offer many teachable moments for parents and their children. They serve as places where parents can teach their children polite behavior in a public place, and places for children to make noise and practice observation skills. And zoos offer a green space for people to gather socially, with the animals providing the backdrop for conversation and family photos. Zoo visits are an almost universal and memorable rite of passage for families in the communities where they exist.

Sound Survey: The TARDIS

The results of the class sound survey certainly demonstrated that sounds can trigger a complex mix of associations and emotions. The sounds in the sound survey that were familiar to me instantly produced a rush of imagery and an emotional response. Even when I heard a sound that seemed only vaguely familiar, my brain found the closest sound in my memory and the imagery associated with that sound, but more slowly. The one sound in the survey that seemed the most foreign to me is the only sound I could not recall later. This makes me wonder if we must have some kind of picture in our head associated with a sound in order to remember (learn) that sound. And I wonder what kind of experience we must have with that sound in order to form a mental picture?
 
The sound that was unfamiliar to me was identified by many people as the TARDIS from Dr. Who. Since that seems like a pretty specific identification, I assume it was the actual sound. I thought it sounded like elephants, and I was comforted to know that at least one other person in the survey thought the same thing (a sound clip of the TARDIS is posted below). Obviously I have not seen Dr. Who or I would know the sound was the TARDIS! (I’m told the show is addictive, so maybe I’ll indulge when I’m done with my Ed Tech program.) When I investigated the TARDIS, I found the following history about the sound (which also says that some people think the TARDIS sounds like trumpeting elephants):
 
http://www.themindrobber.co.uk/tardis-sound-effects-materialisation.html 

Now I have an image and identification with this sound, but I still think it sounds like elephants.

Image by zoer, http://www.flickr.com/photos/zoer/4956423215/

The Music of Elusive Birds

When considering what sound-based passage of text I would use to create a word cloud, my first thought was to grab A Sand County Almanac from my bookshelf. This collection of essays by Aldo Leopold contemplates the flora and fauna of the part of the world where I live (southern Wisconsin) and the role of people in that landscape. The educational value of this book is in its exquisite descriptions of a vanishing landscape that many people will never experience in person, and in promoting an ethic of land conservation that was foreign to most people when the book was published in 1949 (a year after Leopold’s death). As Leopold wrote in the Foreword, “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” It was not until the 1960s environmental movement that this book became known as the classic it is today.

I could have selected any of a number of passages, but I chose this beautiful passage from the essay “September: A Choral Copse”:

There is a peculiar virtue in the music of elusive birds. Songsters that sing from top-most boughs are easily seen and as easily forgotten; they have the mediocrity of the obvious. What one remembers is the invisible hermit thrush pouring silver chords from impenetrable shadows; the soaring crane trumpeting from behind a cloud; the prairie chicken booming from the mists of nowhere; the quail’s Ave Maria in the hush of dawn. No naturalist has even seen the choral act, for the covey is still on its invisible roost in the grass, and any attempt to approach automatically induces silence.

From “September: A Choral Copse” in A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (1966 edition, originally published 1949)

This passage contains so many richly worded phrases (such as “mediocrity of the obvious”) that I kept many of the words together for my word cloud. I selected a color palette that I associate with the month of September.