It will come as no surprise to those that know me that I have been swallowed whole by the vortex of not only Jim Groom‘s Digital Storytelling 106 course, but its off-shoot creation, #DS106radio:
…a free form live streaming station that has been setup for this course, and it is being used as a platform to broadcast the work being created in the class, and a space for live broadcasts as well as for programming shows. The whole point of this experiment is to encourage any and all members of the course (as well as beyond it) to produce something real for anyone who wants to tune in. It’s also provides a global, 24 hour/7 day-a-week happening for the creations of the course and much, much more. And more than anything, ds106 radio is place where anyone can submit their work and help program the course radio station in order to commune and share around works and ideas while at the same time making the web safe for democracy.
Over the past many months, this has created the venue for Talons lessons and projects that have made use of diverse online media and communications in storytelling and culture-creation, given our music department an audience for tour updates and recordings, and introduced me to a tribe of people I have seemingly been searching for the whole time I have been exploring online education and communication (and dare I say a lot longer). It is profound to have made such intimate connections through the avenue of shared sound that, meeting one another for the first time (when the disparate crew who make up the broadcasting core assembled in Vancouver for the recent Northern Voice conference), many of us walked into a room dressed nearly identically, and set about spending a weekend jamming out to mutually loved songs for hours on end without an awkward moment.
With the new inspiration of having faces, and visceral memories, to put to names and Twitter-handles, I set about getting my own devices set to broadcast live on #Ds106radio. After being initially stymied by Ladiocast (despite Tim Owen’s idiot-proof tutorial), I downloaded the Papaya Broadcaster for my iPhone, and made my first forays into the live-broadcasting arena: performing acoustic road trip songs for Mikhail Gershovich‘s family while they drove through California, watching Kevin Bieksa finish off the San Jose Sharks in this year’s Western Conference Finals with friends all over the continent, and providing radio-listeners with impromptu jams and musical interludes from the choir and band rooms at Gleneagle. This cover of Bob Dylan’s “I shall be released” was broadcast live and captured by Scott Lo, in Tokyo, Japan:
I shall be released (Bob Dylan cover) – #DS106 Lunchtime Jam Session 05.27.11
Eventually I graduated to using Nicecast to broadcast from my laptop, and with the help of Talons peer-tutor and recent #ds106radio convert Olga, set about the task of sharing our Music Department’s Spring Concert live on the radio.
And while it might have only actually landed at points across North America, the audience for last night’s show was made up of the 450 students, parents and teachers that packed into our theater, and these fine folks:
You can listen to the concert in its (near) entirety, below (use the comments in the blue bar to navigate between sets and interviews):