Wednesday, March 26

Credit (not financial) and Origins (20 min)

Take your journal out. I’ll come around and give you credit for it.

Write about a time where you felt you did not receive credit for something you worked hard on. Has that ever happened to you? If so, explain what happened and what it felt like.

Read the following information about “school choice,” which is something relevant to what we heard during Nice White Parents and to subjects you are writing about in your research projects.

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School choice is an education policy in the U.S. that allows families to select educational options for their children beyond the traditional public school assigned based on their residential address. It is designed to offer parents alternatives that might better meet their children’s educational needs. The concept is often framed as a way to improve educational outcomes through competition and innovation.

Here are the main types of school choice options:

  1. Charter Schools: Publicly funded schools that operate independently of traditional school district systems. They often have more flexibility in curriculum and management, though they are held accountable for academic results.
  2. Magnet Schools: Public schools with specialized programs or curricula, such as science, technology, arts, or languages. They are designed to attract a diverse student body from across a district.
  3. School Vouchers: Government-funded scholarships that allow students to attend private schools, including religious schools. Voucher programs are controversial because they redirect public funds to private education.
  4. Education Savings Accounts (ESAs): Parents receive public funds in a government-authorized savings account that can be used for a variety of educational expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, or online education.
  5. Tax Credit Scholarships: These programs offer tax credits to individuals or corporations that donate to nonprofit organizations providing private school scholarships.
  6. Open Enrollment: Some states and districts allow parents to enroll their children in public schools outside of their assigned zones, including schools in other districts.
  7. Homeschooling and Online Schools: Parents may choose to educate their children at home or enroll them in virtual schools that offer online courses.

Arguments in Favor of School Choice:

  • Increases competition, potentially improving overall educational quality.
  • Provides low-income families with opportunities to access better educational environments.
  • Encourages innovation in education through charter and private schools.

Arguments Against School Choice:

  • Can divert funds from traditional public schools, exacerbating resource inequalities.
  • Lack of accountability and oversight in some private and charter schools.
  • Risk of increased segregation based on race, class, or ability.

School choice policies vary widely across states, with different levels of regulation and funding. Debates about school choice often revolve around issues of equity, educational quality, and the role of public funds in private education.

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Compare what you read in the above to the Wikipedia article about school choice linked here.

What’s different about what I have written above and what Wikipedia provides? Be observant here. For instance, if you click “view history” at the top right of the Wikipedia page, what can you get access to there?

Where did what I pasted above come from?

What to take away:

  • The first passage was generated from ChatGPT
  • Issues with information retrieval from generative AI models like ChatGPT include: lack of transparency about where information was received, lack of reliability on accuracy of information since these models rely on statistical probabilities associated with word sequencing more than vetted information, lack of credit given to writers who produced the knowledge the model is serving as an output.
  • Wikipedia, however, while not the ideal source for academic research still has a level of transparency, vetting, and credit-assignment through collaborative authorship and source citation via hyperlinking, citation, and version history (which includes what edits happened, when the edits happened, and who made the edits).
  • There are pros and cons of using these programs. A big con is the reliability for information retrieval, which is an important part of the research project. Be wary of any AI usage for research.

Podcast Creation Infrastructure (30 min)

WORRY LESS ABOUT EXPERIENCE AND COMFORT. What do YOU want to learn? This is not about producing the best podcast ever, it is about learning some cool stuff through a collaborative writing experience….something you will do a lot in your careers.

  • Producer: coordinate norms for collaboration, coordinate task schedule, create meeting agendas, coordinate meetings, take meeting minutes, coordinate deadlines and reminders for all group members, stays in touch with Prof. Libertz. Will help with other things: research, fact-checking, script writing support, ideas, coordinating and conducting interviews, etc.
  • Narrator: record self narrating episode while re-recording as needed, to include: monologues, commentary while transitioning between segments, reading end credits. Will help with other things: research, fact-checking, script writing support, ideas, coordinating and conducting interviews, etc.
  • Script Writer: writing and revising drafts of scripts, mapping out organizing the structure of the episode, coordinating feedback from group on script. May help with other things, too, as needed.
  • Audio Editor: editing multiple audio files together for the podcast episode (e.g., narrator monologues or commentary, interviews, music, sound effects), thinking about volume, audio quality, etc. May help with others things, too, as needed–especially early on when there is less for audio editor to do.

Writing to Coordinate activity: team charter, scripts, more research writing, meeting agendas, meeting minutes, progress reports, task schedule

Deadlines for getting things done. Wanted to finalize podcast by May 5 (more information on podcast assignment logistics here).

Workflow Options (from Joanna Wolfe, Team Writing, p. 6):

  • All Together: Entire team sits down and works on project together. Usually one or two team members “drives” at the computer and others give feedback as the work happens.
  • Divided: The group breaks project down into sections and assigns individual team members to different sections or parts of project.
  • Layered: Each person on team is assigned one or more specific roles. Each person works on project in turn, adding their own expertise to product. Document slowly accumulates in layers as each team member revises as project moves forward.

For the rest of the semester, we will have time inside of class and outside of class to collaborate within episode groups and across episode groups (e.g., “tone meetings” for script writers to ensure consistency across episodes).

The most important role in the beginning is the Producer and I have some notes here on what Producers need to be doing today and until the project is complete.

Here, too, is what you worked on last class for your notes for your episodes.

By today, I need the following from each episode group:

  • The final “roster” (i.e., who is working on what episode and what their role is–I’ll help with this)
  • A draft of a “Team Charter”
  • A draft of a “Task Schedule” that works backwards from the episodes being completed by May 5.

Producers: send me this information by…when?

Audacity Check-in (15 min)

Let’s talk about your 1-minute intro to your research project due next week. Also, want to see if there was any downloading issues for Audacity. For instance don’t do the “MuseHub” option. For Windows, do 64 bit or 32 bit though you almost certainly have 64 bit (confirm what your device is by following these steps). For Apple, I’m less sure, but do one of the ones that is not for MuseHub. Alternatively, for Apple, your device likely comes with GarageBand and you are welcome to use that (fairly easy to learn, like Audacity is).

Use the Audacity tutorials I have linked here as well as resources for sound effects, music, etc. listed here (see under “Sites that offer sound recordings in the public domain and under creative commons license” but there is a lot of good information here about public domain and creative commons license). 

IMPORTANT: when finished with editing audio and you want an audio file, you have to export your file as an audio file. I recommend mp3. Go to: File>Export Audio>Export to Computer>Format>MP3 Files>Export. Make sure you know what folder it goes to (it will automatically go to your “Audacity” folder that you create when installing Audacity)

I’m going to push the deadline for the research project revision to Friday, April 4 by 11:59pm. I’ll make sure we have time in class on Wednesday, April 2 to mess around more with editing audio for your research project preview OR read a research project draft together.

What would you prefer to do right now? If mess around with Audacity, we can go through tips below.

The key is to just play around for a bit and seek help from online resources.

Here are some tips for steps to take:

  1. Open Audacity to start recording and editing. Make sure you save as the Audacity project somewhere to your device. And then repeatedly save as you work. You might also save different versions as you go if you see yourself tweaking things a lot and might want a historical record—this is a good practice as you start working on bigger projects so you can go back to earlier versions.
  • When ready, test things out and then start recording your thoughts in Audacity.
  1. Make sure you are in a quiet place (as much as possible).
  • Test out recording by just talking about anything for 30 seconds to a minute.
  • Stop test recording and then play it back.
  • If you can’t hear anything, it might be because you didn’t have the correct microphone selected or you don’t have the correct speakers highlighted (see beginning of first video.
  • Once you have tested everything, start recording. Make sure you hit “stop” when done.
  • I said it had to be at least one minute but there is wiggle room here.
  • When you complete the recording, listen to it. If you are happy with it, move on. If not, either re-record or edit out portions (NOTE: some things are easy to edit out, like things at beginnings or ends or things with lots of silence in between them—which is the “generate silence” tool can sometimes help with—but sometimes it is just easier to re-record).
  • Try to add another track! E.g., some intro and outro music at beginning and end, some ambient noise that might thematically tie well into what you are saying (like when the sounds of classrooms or meetings added to what Joffe-Walt was narrating). Make sure you go back to the videos for help with adding tracks as both touch on this. Also try to add effects! Fade in/fade out is especially helpful for intro and outro music.

Here are some resources of audio files you could download and then import into your Audacity project (IMPORTANT: Note the descriptive text beneath it as it will sometimes request that you credit the creator; if the creator wants an attribution, make sure you include that attribution when you submit your audio file):

  1. Freesound – Freesound (will need to make a free account, and then can just browse for any type of sound or kind of music you’d be interested in).
  • Free Sound Effects, Royalty Free Sound Effects, Nature Sounds (partnersinrhyme.com). Especially note “free royalty free music” and “free sound effects.” Some audio files (like much of “royalty free music” have a fee, so be sure to avoid those). You can just click download mp3 or download wav version, either will work. For “royalty free music,” right click options in middle of page and open new tab, then click the three vertical dots to download.
  • Free Sound Effects Same as previous: free sound effects only, but easy to navigate and download stuff.
  • Wikimedia Commons. If you search for something, make sure “audio” is clicked after searching to see all audio options. You can also try searching “music” or by genre of music to see what comes up. Sometimes there are some good musical or instrumental tracks you can download for free.
  • To get a file into Audacity, click “File” and then “Import” and then select “Audio.” Select the file from wherever you downloaded to on your device.
  • NOTE: try to only use MP3 or WAV files as they are easy to import into Audacity. There are ways to use other audio files, so let me know if you want to and I can work with you on that (e.g., sometimes MP4A will be a thing). Usually, though, there will be an option to do MP3 or WAV.
  • If you tried to add a track, listen to it and play around with it as much as you want based on what you learned from the videos. Don’t stress about it! This is all just practice. If you did not add a track with other sounds or music, that’s okay! This will be something you will have to do at some point, but you don’t have to do it now. Could be good practice, but not required.
  • When ready to create an audio file, go to “File” and then “Export” and then select “Export as MP3” to save on your device as that audio file.

Research Project Draft (30 min)

Read the student research draft example on Brightspace in the “Student Writing” content module on let side of page (click on the one that has “March 26” as the date). I want you to focus on two things:

  • the argument (and its potential)
  • its use of sources

Next Time

-No class on Monday, March 31

-I’m going to shift the deadline for the research project to Friday, April 4.

-Start getting going on your podcast work. I need the team charter, task schedule, and roster of roles for each episode group by the date we agreed upon.

-Grade boosts! Now is a good time to start thinking about those

-Who owes me work? Please talk to me after class