4 Making Connections/ Readings Takeaways
TEDx Talk. Emily Baiilin, 2014
Take away: The power of different media and their unique qualities in telling a narrative
I absolutely love Where I’m From by George Ella Lyon. When I took the Equity and Diversity class with Nicole Johnson, she introduced the poem through a multimodal project. We each created our own poem from our lived experiences accompanied by a collage, with both works extending and speaking to one another. I found it especially compelling in this TEDx talk to see the same project translated into moving images layered with music and voice, rather than collage and a live reading. As a different medium for storytelling, the results were equally powerful yet profoundly different. The addition of sound and video creates an even deeper understanding of the space being described—it becomes almost tactile.
Digital Storytelling in the Elementary Classroom. Youtube Video, 5 min. June 13, 2011, Oregon Writing Project at University of Oregon.
Take away: An example of how to break digital storytelling down into a lesson plan/ sequence for elementary school children- a student centered project
“Digital storytelling- using technology to tell a story
- “We came up with an idea about something we would like to share and wrote a story”
- color coded stories to turn into a script
- wrote script
- Production- recorded student voices reading script
- Imported edited photos and added music/ sound effects- most of the time was spent on this
Students appeared to be very invested and enthusiastic about this project- definitely student centered from each of their own lived experiences
TED Radio Hour The Act Of Listening - Honor Harger: What Does Space Sound Like?
Take away: Mindful listening, tuning in to the everyday through the sense of listening, even what is proceed as nothing has a sound- the sound of space
When creating a sound composition, the first thing I had to do before recording was learn how to truly listen and really hear. I recorded my favorite place on earth, the barn. I go to the barn every morning, and each time I am surrounded by sound, yet I usually do not stop to consciously listen. This assignment forced me to slow down, open my ears, and listen mindfully.
In the podcast, Honor Harger explains that the static and hissing we hear in recordings or transmissions of “nothing” are actually “cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang.” She describes how the sun emits radio waves that can be detected through antennas and radio receivers, and states that the empty sound of space is an “undifferentiated hissing noise.” She also notes that “it’s through listening we have come to uncover some of the universe’s secrets.” This made me realize that, quite literally, everything becomes sound when we listen closely enough.
It also reminded me of a video by Charlie Puth, where he creates a song from the sound of nothing. This further emphasized how underused my sense of listening can be in daily life. It connects to what Richard said about the difference between noise and a message being listening: we hear noise constantly, but it does not become meaningful (a message) until we actively engage with it and allow ourselves to be present.
Katie Gately: How Much can you feel
Take away: The power of sound as a medium and how it can evoke emotion in a deeply personal way
This video, along with my own experience of creating a narrative through sound, reminded me of the collage process—where scraps are gathered, sorted through, cut, and layered until the right pieces emerge, often in ways more powerful than originally imagined. Each sound felt “very unique… from my personal life, my wanderings through the world,” as Katie said in the video. This method of capturing a space was something I had never tried before, and it felt deeply personal. Exploring my favorite place, the barn, through sound was completely different from the hundreds of times I had experienced it before. The final composition evoked a strong sense of joy and encapsulated the space in a new way—distinct from my previous renderings, paintings, prints, or collages of the animals. It brought the same subject—my beloved horses and the emotions they evoke in me—into an entirely new dimension.
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