4. MUSIC SOFTWARE
SOURCES OF MUSIC: There are 2 major sources of music: an original CD and everywhere else, which is the Internet. The latter source has become extremely popular in recent years. Once a piece of music is downloaded into your file or you stick a CD into your PC, you can extract the 8.79 sec or 1.34 min clip you need for your animated title on your PowerPoint slide.
SOFTWARE ISSUES: Here are a few key questions that you should be asking me:
a. Why do you need software? The music from the above sources is in the form of complete tracks and may not be in a format compatible with PowerPoint. You may need only a tiny clip. The software allows you to extract that clip and convert it to wav or another appropriate format.
b. How expensive is the software? Ones I’ve used range from free to $50. The cost is minimal.
c. Once you pick the music, how long does it take to extract the clip, convert it (if necessary), and insert it into your PowerPoint slide? Once you learn the process, it can take 5 min.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS: (NOTE: Mac users may not need the software described below.) As a nontechie, I taught myself how to use one software program 4 years ago and have been using it ever since. It is (drum roll, please):
Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 8 or 9
It is fairly easy to use, extremely dependable, and cheap. I recommend the cheapest and simplest version available now.
Other options that are free include:
Audacity
AVS Audio Editor
These programs are similar to the Sony program and have been recommended by several IT colleagues. However, I could not locate manuals for these freebies.
In order to learn how to use these programs, I suggest cornering someone in your IT department, a computer science student, one of your students, or your own kid. I can also walk you through the Sony program.
Once you have completed your 1st music clip insert, you will enter a whole new world. Your animated slides will be changed forever and your conference audience or students will be very appreciative. Go for it.
My next blog will up the ante to video clips.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
4. MUSIC CLIPS (CONTINUED)
As promised, this blog will list types of music to consider and a dozen generic techniques you can apply in the classroom. Details with examples are provided in my 2008 article mentioned previously.
TYPES OF MUSIC: There are a variety of music types that can be used in the classroom. The actual choice will depend on the characteristics of the students and their interests., Here is a shopping list of 8 categories to keep in mind: (1) classical, (2) early romantic, (3) late romantic, (4) 20th century, (5) TV, movie, and Broadway soundtracks, (6) pop (e.g., top 40, country, easy listening, rap, hip-hop, rock, rhythm and blues), (7) jazz , and (8) new age. Your choices should be based on your students’ interests initially and effect you want to create.
12 GENERIC TECHNIQUES: Over the past 20 years, I have accumulated the BERKO Collection of music techniques that have been tested with thousands of undergraduate and graduate students in various statistics courses and research surveying students’ assessment in learning the content. Hold on to your keyboard. Here they are:
1. Prelude to Class
2. Class Opening Tune-ups
3. Special Occasion Blockbusters
4. Topic Introductions
5. Content Grabbers
6. Introductions to Class Demonstrations
7. Collaborative Learning Productions
8. Class Activity Interludes
9. Class Breakers
10. Test Reviews with Games
11. Postreview Pep Rally
12. Posttest Pick-Me-Ups
The impact of these techniques in your classroom to attain specific learning outcomes can change your entire learning environment and atmosphere.
My next blog will suggest specific software for extracting your music clips and inserting them into your PowerPoint. Start picking your music.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
ATTENTION, POWERPOINTERS!!
I recently Googled “PowerPoint,” “Presentations,” and “Conference Presentations” to make sure I am not spewing material you could obtain elsewhere. I’m NOT. However, I encourage you to peruse Microsoft’s recommendations and those by other “experts” on communication principles with PowerPoint.
THEIR INTENT is: To present a nice, neat, semi-interesting, professional presentation of important information.
OUR HERO’S INTENT is (Watch out! Are ya ready?): To deliver the same information while connecting, engaging, exciting, entertaining, motivating, and, maybe even, inspiring your audience so that their presentation experience with you is unforgettable and the information memorable. Your audience should be on the edges of their uncomfortable seats, not relaxed and passive in a beach lounger. That’s kinda like teaching, but without the students, although I recommend the same approach in the classroom.
DISCLAIMER:
My suggestions in these blogs will blow the traditional PowerPoint recommendations to smithereens. Will I violate the rules? You bet. They will be shredded, ground into pulp, and smashed into PowerPoint road kill. (Note: I apologize for the violence in this disclaimer. Sometimes I get carried away.) For example, I tried the recommended traditional, one color slide-same font approaches. Guess what? The slides were as boring as the content on them. (Sidebar: As a former freelance photographer, I learned early on that if a picture doesn’t elicit some feeling [positive or negative] by the viewer, then it should be discarded as ineffective.)
NEW RULE FOR POWERPOINT: That rule should apply to our PowerPoint slides. Our audience should be emotionally involved in our presentation. That begins with the slides. A spiritless, unemotional reaction to our slides is totally unacceptable. If my strategy is making you nervous or you already started throwing up in this 1st paragraph, you might want to get a vomit bag or close this blog.
BERK'S GOAL: To arm you with the tools to create break-the-mold presentations, not create a moldy audience as they drift into a coma.
BERK'S AUDIENCE ASSUMPTIONS: I assume every audience to whom I present has better things to do with its valuable time than attend my session. The cynics and know-it-alls are thinking: “Tell me something I DON’T already know.” The students probably have the attention span of goat cheese and mentally operate at “twitch speed.”
THE CHALLENGE: Open the presentation with a bang and sustain that bang or you’ll lose them. It’s opening night on Broadway!
4. SOUND EFFECTS (Continued)
As we continue merrily along on our sound effect journey, it’s now time to reveal for the 1st time anywhere on earth: my faves. Maybe you already picked some of the same effects from the sources suggested in my previous blog. Sound effect drum roll, please. OOPS! I forgot sound effects are illegal in blogs! Here ‘tis picks:
BERK’S PICKS:
Soda can crinkle
Drum roll
Comical descent
Comical metal gong
Film leader blip
Film take scene
Gadget sound
Frog croak
Paper wadded up
Tear paper
Tire screech
Unzip metal zipper
UFO sweep
INSERT EFFECTS INTO PP: As noted in my previous blog, click Insert and take a bite out of your sandwich. UMMM. Sorry, I got distracted. The effects that you selected should be saved in your file in a folder or somewhere hangin’ around waiting for you to pick them. They’re probably getting lonely and anxious for your attention.
Here’s the step-by-step to insert the effects:
a. On the drop down, click Sound from File
b. Pick your effect and click it
c. Click OK
d. Click Automatically
e. Drag sound effect “speaker” icon to left or right off slide
f. Under Custom Animation in right margin, to right of Start, click After Previous, With Previous, or Click, depending on how you want to control timing of effect
g. Use the effect with an animated title, line, or word
Any ideas yet on how you can create a powerhouse PP with emotional impact? I hope a few of the preceding strategies have struck a chord or your fancy. Hold on to your fancy. I’ll be adding music and videos in the next few blogs. Do any of these techniques actually work for you? Let me know.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
After 40 years and more than 4100 episodes broadcast in 120 countries, Sesame Street has established a standard for education of all youth. This Emmy-award winning program is the most effective educational children’s program in history. The creative forces behind Sesame used engagement techniques and technology before it was easy and fashionable. What can higher education learn from Sesame Street?
In this visual-learner, wired-for-sound Net Generation of students, 1st grade through graduate school, should we consider integrating live people (faculty and students), muppets, animation, cartoon characters, celebrities, music, and video clips with people and animals in our teaching? Sesame Street is fun and funny. Their use of parody and satire is brilliant. Isn't learning supposed to be FUN? Why do so many faculty dismiss "fun" as a criterion for learning? They have probably sucked the life out of their teaching and students. Sesame models basic principles of teaching we all should follow.
Multimedia-wise, the music and videos are used almost nonstop throughout the programs and even in the extremely popular “Elmo’s World” segment. A multimedia approach undergirds the teaching of basic academic and life skills. The lyrics are chock full of content to help kids remember numbers, arithmetic, geometric forms, letters, words, cognitive processes, and classification. Catchy melody, upbeat tempos excite children and keep their attention, while slipping the content into long-term memory. Researchers found that when the music and action was stopped, such as on Sesame Street during dialogue between adults, the children stopped watching (Fisch & Truglio, 2001).
This music-action-video formula to learning deserves serious consideration by all faculty. It is especially apropos for this generation of students. They have minimal patience with course requirements and the attention span of goat cheese (Berk, 2008a). They want everything NOOW.
Their behaviors, however, are by choice. They can spend hours playing video games or other activities in which they are interested and engaged (Prensky, 2006); they just find most courses boring. For more than a decade, 40+ % of college students nationwide report “they are frequently bored in class” (Pryor et al., 2009). Unless the content is on their radar screens, it’s likely to be rated “boring.”
Can faculty create adult student versions of Sesame Street in their live face-to face and online classrooms? Sure. Why not? The application of music and video technology will be a start to break the mold of traditional teaching practices. (Note: Instructors at not-for-profit teaching institutions are permitted to use music and video clips in their face-to-face as well as online classes under the “Fair Use” doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Law.)
For further details on using music and videos in teaching, you can download two articles on those topics from www.ronberk.com (under dropdown for Publications, click Articles and links to 2008b and 2009b PDFs).
Today’s blog was brought to you by the letter “M” and the number “40.” I wish Sesame another 40 years of amazing success with our little tikes and their parents, some of whom may even be faculty.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
