action....reaction.. reflection ...proaction

The general problem

My objective was to extend my knowledge about digital audio i.e.wave files, MP3 formats and other audio compression codecs was general given that I was only just starting to record audio for education at the time DIL project commenced.

Those first steps
I had already taken some steps to source a digital MP3 WAV audio recorder. Initially I offered to record the Face 2 face meeting from the introductory workshop for this DIL research project because both Bron and Merolee were absent at the round robin introduction when we each expalined our objective.

My subsequent steps
included file management; archiving; and access/confidentiality; issues around informed consent; questions about email groups;. Hence the archiving in internet archive or publishing this has not been an option.
If the individual audio recording of the introductory discussion could be made available to those taking part how could this be done so as to conform to ethical research considerations of confidentiality.
As I had no knowledge of what these were (and we had not asked anyones consent to record) although on reflection I thought that the audio was potentially a good resource for us to refer to when we come to go about the 5 week and 10 week action reflection process.

Evaluations:

The audio processing has provided another complication because to edit the files in audacity requires lame- an open source plugin. There are some features of audacity that take a bit of trial and error.

In addition to this there is no lame on the XP where I process the audio cause sound card on the win 98 died.

File management ...


I realised as this was historically a problem for me -how was I to systematically format edit reformat and archive and publish these and other recordings so these could be readily accessible, useable and reusable,

like looking for a needle in a haystack-
how I can possibly manage and organise audio (linked to image and text) across 3 different computers windows 98, 2000 (@ home) and XP ( @ work) a 4 GB USB drive and the 4 GB audio digital recording device and create online archived backups in googlegroups or internet archive.

Monitoring

With digital audio there is at the same time a steady stream of multimedia possibilites. Most recently I have been learning to combine a hyperlink to an audio file stored in internet archive with a powerpoint show that I uploaded. Noting there are more often than not three different programmes to use to achieve the same objective (movie maker, slideshare, kaltural and vegas). I chose Slideshare provides free powerpoint conversion and sync tools to create a slidecast (movie with a slide show with a sound track) so as I could link images and text embeded in slideshare and linked to audio from a free online (podcasting) server like internet archive, blip tv, youtube, and then publish the movie from my blog.

Noteing the experience
A rather large amount of data can be created over a short space of time. There is some advantage in processing this immediately to have maximum recall.

old habits die hard
I really need to get a pattern and refine this. One advantage could be to approach audio file management on a day to day basis to trail various practices, keep current, keep recording and also to share all this. Part of the system would be to develop an archive process to ensure the audio is readily identifiable and locatable reusable (something I ponder upon occassionally).

General problem Reviewed

When I bite of more than i can chew in digital literacy terms this could explain why there have been countless points of impass achieving multimedia objectives. Because of audio image text overlap, and programmes are by definition infinitely interruptable and subject to reprogramming ( be aware of beta), transformation and there is very good reason to introduce the reflective process into the mix as an investigative tool that promotes successive successes. I may have to learn not to do my editing file managment in XP and just as a matter of course make a policy of archiving everything in google docs, and publishing various of those in bliptv or internet archive. is no longer an option possible to avoid (beta) software

. .action....reaction.. reflection ...proaction

and the moral of the story is?