You guys bring up wonderful memories I've had of sharing technology with classrooms. Now granted, this may be a bit off topic, and yet, there may be something there for someone embarking on classroom demos.
Over the years, just north of you Peter, while at KSRO in Santa Rosa, I had a standing arrangement with the local schools to do talks on recording and broadcast history. Since I was old enough to stand up, Mom says I was always hanging around the wind up recorder at home. I went the LA Co. fair in grade school and was hypnotized watching KNX do live programming. I was hooked, and my passion became my career. I've learned some key things about presentations in classrooms: 1. The best ice breaker is letting kids hear their own voices come out of a speaker. It's a great way to get the dis-interested/too cool characters involved. 2. Like any form of public speaking, selling or instructing, when your passion becomes relative to your audience, you've got 'em. So I always looked for ways to relate to "their" world. This brings to mind a couple of my favorites. One of the local High School Bands in Sonoma County was invited to march in a presidential innauguration parade in Washington. A local shoe manufacturer designed boots for them to wear and outfitted the whole group. It happened I was scheduled to speak at the school, so I got the band together while I was there and recorded them (marching footsteps and all) and a commercial became a regional ad for the shoe maker, not to mention a great local demo for the classrooms that combined for the event. More to the point, I walked in another classroom to speak about this ancient "radio thing" and to their surprise, the entire classroom became actors, singers and slurping sound effects artists for something they knew very well...McDonalds. It was done "old live radio" style with everyone invloved. That is the secret I think. And, they had a new appreciation for the science I loved in an entertaining way. Happy lecturing! Steve [email protected] -------------- Original message -------------- From: Peter Fraser <[email protected]> > I've given a presentation on Edison, as a person and inventor, to the > 5th grade classes at my kids' elementary school for the past 8 > years. i bring in a Standard and a Gem or a Q, and a Vic R and an > orthophonic portable, and samples of various media and misc other > stuff (including a vinyl LP and a tape cassette, which are becoming > just as alien as a cylinder record to today's 10 year olds). i also > bring a candle and a replica edison bulb, and a recorder and a few > shaved brown wax cylinders, and a string/tin can telephone. > > and then i walk them through a comparison of how they entertain > themselves today vs before and after Edison's phonograph, and a > comparison of how we light our rooms. then we go to demos of home > recordings (i have an awful rendition of O\ld Black Joe, plus a > commercial version, which makes for a fun comparison, and no, i don't > hand out the lyrics to that one). i play some late 20s hot jazz and > explain how it was music parents didn't like their kids to listen > to. the 5th grade kids love hearing that they now have more formal > education than Edison had. but their favorite is lining up to record > their names and a brief phrase onto wax, and then hearing it back. i > also usually get one or two of the musically talented ones to record > a musical performance. when i can get it together, i burn them CDs > of their recordings as well, afterwards. > > we always talk about who their heros are, and how the heros of > yesterday are different than many of those of today...and how that > contributed to the naming of their school when it was founded in the > early 30s: Edison Elementary. this leads to another sort of > comparison, of what we value in our society now vs what people > admired then, still rather basic but often remarkably insightful for > 10 year olds. of course, i live in the sometimes-disdained and > horrid/ugly/crowded/yaddayadda San Francisco area, where we have > those awful San Francisco values ("coming soon to a Congress near > you!"), so your mileage may vary on this particular point. > > it's always a gratifying experience, and we have a lot of fun. i'll > probably keep doing it even after my kid is out of there. > > > > > -- Peter > [email protected] > > > > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > [email protected] > > Phono-L Archive > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org/archive/ > > Support Phono-L > http://www.cafepress.com/oldcrank From [email protected] Fri Nov 10 14:39:18 2006 From: [email protected] ([email protected]) Date: Sun Dec 24 13:12:00 2006 Subject: [Phono-L] Columbia friction reproducer Message-ID: <[email protected]> In a message dated 11/10/2006 2:16:15 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: Does anyone out there have a functional e-mail, or if need be Paul's snail mail? ==================== Paul Baker can be reached at [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) , or 716-826-2192. Best regards, Rene Rondeau
