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This project -- of getting students to submit part of one of their essays as an audio file -- has brought to the fore several things I know about teaching with technology but that I frequently forget. In fact, I think those of us who do workshops for colleagues downplay this part of our experience, perhaps because we want to forget it ourselves, or because if we were really honest with newcomers, they would never jump into the fray. Some elements of teaching -- like childbirth -- are an amnesiac. Otherwise, why would we keep punishing ourselves this way? I was searching for an image to represent this fluctuation, and finally settled on the sine curve.

Alan Levine's workshop on podcasting was the trigger, but I had already been experimenting with audio in my class materials as a result of a Digital Storytelling workshop presented by Julie Knapp and Bonnie Loss, sponsored by the Faculty Connection Center at GCC. So I was ready to jump. I had several problems I was trying to solve: how to provide an alternative for students who blanch at text, how to invade a second channel of student attention, how to tap student curiousity, how to engage students with their writing, how to show that surface features of text (grammar, usage and mechanics or GUM) are useful, and how to get them to write less insipid and formulaic introductions and conclusions in English 101 and 102.

Luckily, we have many environments and options at GCC, and I'm ashamed to admit that I was already using a lot of them: a streaming media server, an electronic magazine where students could publish their writing, a good collection of digital images in GCC's Library, Blackboard, a course discussion group where students could ask questions, and several places where students could provide anonymous feedback. I was also starting a new assignment (an analysis of an electronic surveillance product that put students in the position of "watcher") where this audio would fit really well.

So the storytelling and podcasting workshops just started me up the slope.

I loved Odeo.  The audio was clear, the recording was easy, and it was a snap to copy the little player onto my web page.  I've settled on the small table on my web pages to signal that I have an audio piece there.  Then I tried the cell phone option -- because I think some students would love the novelty of using their cell phone as part of a writing class-- and tried adding the audio to a page in the class Zine for this next assignment.   I figured that if I were going to talk about "phoning it in," I should do it.  Also, I've learned that if I'm going to ask students to do something, I'd better do it myself first to make sure it works.  And that's where the down slope appeared. 

Cell phone recording didn't work.  (Software bug at Odeo . . . they're still working on getting it fixed, but I got a message this afternoon that they think they have a work-around.)  Scotch that plan.  So I went looking for other, similar tools, and I found evoca which does the same thing.  [Don'tcha just love the redundancy of the Internet?]  The audio isn't quite as clear, but phoning it in works in evoca, and it is just as easy to paste the little player onto the screen.

So I've embarked on this option for this third assignment, all a-twitter, thinking this is just so cool.  And that's what I've discovered.  The students are cool to it . . . well, cold.  No response at all.  Zip.  Maybe they just haven't clicked on the links.  There has been one comment on the Finish Line audio, but nothing about "phoning it in." (Ah, I can see a little research project rearing its ugly head here.)

This has happened to me before, so I'm not too surprised and not really disappointed. Well, maybe just a little. I know there is no magic bullet.  Teaching, with technology or without it, is a constant "punch and feint," trying one approach, measuring the response and impact, trying another approach, rethinking and redesigning the activity, getting feedback from students and really listening to it, trying again.  Cool tools provide us more options, and we can create and re-create things quickly.  First it's trial and error; then it's more focused classroom research.  But it's still that upsy-down of the sine curve of teaching with technology.

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