Pat Frank, at your school’s Admissions Office, is considering setting up a weekly podcast that covers campus life: classes, campus events, social life, sporting events, and other topics that might give prospective students a better idea about what it’s like to be a student at your school. He’s inviting your class to create podcasts and submit them for possible inclusion on the Admissions Office’s website. As Pat points out when he meets with your class, the primary purpose of these podcasts would be marketing the school and sometimes specific departments and programs — in a very broad, soft-sell kind of way. You shouldn’t falsify information or be unrealistic about what it’s like to be a student here. But you should provide highlights of campus life: What’s interesting, challenging, and fun about being a student here?
Pat reminds your class that the audience for the podcast is much larger than just prospective students. Parents of prospective students, for example, may listen in to the podcasts. And it’s possible other people will listen in — ranging from students, faculty, staff, and administrators at your school, to alumni and people in the local community. So you need to avoid portraying any of those people (or any of the things they care about) in too harsh a light.
Pat provides you with some information (below) specifying some of the technical issues involved (length of podcast, file format), tips about equipment to use, and pointers to some web resources on podcasting.
Your primary goal is to produce a five-minute podcast (in MP3 format) that covers one or more aspects of campus life for an audience of potential students. And although rare individuals can speak fluidly in polished, broadcast-ready prose, most novices will benefit from a script and some practice beforehand. So you’ll need to create a script and run through it a few times to iron out any kinks before you start recording. A sample script is shown below.
• PURPOSE
Convince students to consider applying for admission to your school
• AUDIENCE
Prospective students and their parents
• CONTEXT
Your campus
• TEXT
Five-minute audio podcast
Finally, when you complete the project, Pat wants a brief (one- to two-page) memo in which you describe your strategies in designing the podcast, including your rationale for specific choices in terms of production and content. As you write the memo, refer back to your PACT chart so that you can connect your text decisions back to aspects of your context, audience, and purpose.
[introduce self]
Our topic this week: Challenges and rewards of becoming a Resident Assistant
[all discuss]
• A partial script for a podcast
There are a lot of things that might convince prospective students to apply to your school. Consider looking at resources like the existing recruiting materials at your school. Look at other schools that seem to be targeting similar students to see what their strategies are.
Search the web for tutorials on making podcasts, both general strategies and those specific to whatever audio-editing software you’ll be using.
It would also be a good idea to locate some existing podcasts, especially popular ones. As you work through your PACT chart, add notes about strategies that seem important for the specific audiences you’re working with.
As you look at existing materials, here are some questions to keep in mind:
After you’ve brainstormed some ideas for topics, come up with five to seven specific things to cover in the podcast (in other words, a very brief outline). Review your outline and ask yourself the following questions.
Based on your answers, write a script for the podcast covering the points from your outline.
PRIMARY CONNECTIONS
SECONDARY CONNECTIONS
PODCAST
University of Kentucky Department of Anthropology, “Choose Your Own Adventure”
This podcast’s purpose and audience are not identical to the one in this scenario, but listening to it will give you a better understanding of podcasting conventions and practices, including things like the use of background music and narration. Good podcasts are not simply casual recordings, but carefully constructed and edited texts. As you listen to the podcast, note how the speaker enunciates words carefully, pauses between phrases, and frequently applies stress to key words. This speech pattern is not natural for most people — it sounds natural because we’ve been trained, over thousands of hours listening to people speak in broadcast media, in the news, in commercials, or in other contexts where vocal communication is valued. You may have to practice this type of speech to make it work, possibly recording yourself and then listening back to the recording to see whether you’re overdoing it.
One useful technique is to practice in a small group. Listen to the podcast and talk about what the podcast speaker is doing with her speech patterns. Listen to one another try them out until you all get comfortable (or at least a little comfortable).
Listen to the podcast. (University of Kentucky, College of Arts & Sciences/Patrick O’Dowd)
Download the transcript.
NMP: Insert player and file.
Refer to this scenario’s Strategies, Questions to Keep in Mind, and Background Text as you begin building your own PACT chart in the write-in boxes below. Then “submit” your notes. Continue to review and build on your PACT notes as you complete the scenario. You can “save” your notes and continue later.
NMD: “Strategies”, “Questions to Keep in Mind”, and “Background Texts” need to link back to heads.
• PURPOSE
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• AUDIENCE
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• CONTEXT
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• TEXT
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After completing this scenario, reflect on your experience by answering the questions below. Then “submit” your responses.
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