A mission for the new intake

Are you a teacher looking for ideas for the new intake? Does your school have any of those hand-held USB sound recorders such as the Easi-Speak? Then this may be for you.

I moved house recently and was struck by all the different sounds that contributed my new environment. Your new students may not have articulated it but I imagine the new sounds they have encountered since joining the school must have made an impression. I have described the Easi-Speak recording microphones in earlier blogs but any similar recording device would do for this exercise and many mobile phones will record sound in adequate quality. Form teams of three, one team for each recording device. That gives you one ‘leader’, one to operate the device and one to log the recorded sounds on paper. The leader is the least necessary of the three but can keep their ears open and suggest new sounds to record, freeing up the others to concentrate on their tasks. You could also make them responsible for ensuring the written record tallies with the clips on the recorder.

If possible, issue the recorders at the start of the day and collect them at the end. In the next lesson you can ask each group to play back the clips and invite the other children to identify the sounds they hear. The quality of the results will depend on many factors, not least the ability of the children to handle the technology. Don’t stint on the training here; and that means familiarising yourself with whatever technology you’re issuing. In my experience most children know their own mobile phones inside out so you needn’t worry in that regard. You will also need to reproduce the sound at sufficient volume. The Easi-Speak and most mobile phones have headphone sockets for a standard sized mini-jack so this should not pose a problem.

So what are the benefits of this exercise? Well, they are manifold. It

• builds confidence in using the technology.
• improves presentation skills.
• promotes independent learning.
• encourages co-operation.
• develops powers of aural observation.
• familiarises children with their new environment.
• provides an opportunity to repay trust.

A word to the wise: If you are using Easi-Speaks make sure they are charged up, set to record in whichever format you prefer (WAV or mp3) and the memories are clean before you begin. My informal road test may also be worth a read.

Easi-speak - a road test

I related my first impressions of the Easi-Speak back in mid-February. Well last week we took a bunch of year 3 children (aged 7 and 8) to Norwich market where, armed with the little USB recording microphones, they interviewed some of the stallholders. We had split into seven groups, each with a microphone. I know for a fact that in some groups the adult took charge of the microphone and in others the children took turns holding it. At the end of the day I took all the microphones home and downloaded the resulting files onto my computer.

Of the seven groups, three had recorded WAV files and three had recorded mp3 files and one group hadn't recorded anything at all. One of the mp3 groups managed to record five files, one of which was eight seconds long, the others all four seconds or less and none of them containing anything of any worth. Another group presented me with 21 files, only eight of which was over ten seconds in length. One of those eight was eight minutes long. Another group gave me one file only that was nearly ten minutes long.

Looking at the files themselves there was no appreciable difference in quality between the WAVs and the mp3s. No great surprise there: these were hardly laboratory conditions. As far as content was concerned this varied considerably. The children understood speaking into a microphone (although not the fact that putting it right up to your mouth will cause distortion). But they hadn't got the hang of pointing it at the interviewee when s/he is answering a question. Getting a usable result from this kind of file involves a large amount of time with a wave form editor to reduce the disparity between levels and remove sudden bangs and pops. What was very pleasing, though, was the way in which the microphones responded to being hand-held: there was no undue hand-generated noise.

Perhaps what was most frustrating was the tendency for many budding sound recordists to press the record button repeatedly in an absent minded fashion, thus switching the recording on and off. This led to the many unusable fragments of just a few seconds in length alluded to above.

Why didn't I provide proper training for both staff and pupils in the use of these gadgets before embarking on the trip? Before you castigate me for this please hear my feeble excuses. Firstly, had I not managed to borrow one previously from another school I would have had no idea at all how the Easi-Speak worked. Secondly, my first contact with these children was a short, 'get-to-know-you' session the afternoon before the trip. In the firm belief that one learns fastest from one's mistakes I offer the following advice based on my experience:

1. Give the children, and staff, adequate training in the use of the Easi-Speak itself. This should include switching on and off, recording and playback. It should also include switching between mp3 and WAV file formats. The display is limited to one LED and it is important to know what its various signals are trying to convey. Allow plenty of time for this familiarisation process.

2. Make sure the staff know how to charge the microphones and how to download and manage files.

3. Familiarise the children, and adults, in microphone technique. This can be done in the classroom and the results of 'interviews' quickly listened to and discussed

4. Make sure the memory of the Easi-Speak has been wiped clean before embarking on your project, be it in school or in the field. The first thing I had to do on encountering the files at the end of the day was determine which were from the trip and which from previous use of the gadget.

5. Number each microphone prior to issue with masking tape. Alternatively hide a small slip of paper in the cap covering the USB plug at the base. That will allow you to address any shortcomings in technique with the relevant people after the session.

In spite of all its shortcomings, along with my own, I found the whole exercise immensely satisfying for the following reasons:

1. The Easi-Speak, at the very least, was a great confidence booster. It enabled kids with issues around vocabulary and self-expression to ask questions of complete strangers.

2. In spite of all I've said above we did come away with some usable (after a little work) material of great value. If I can square it with the school I'll try and post some of it in the future.

3. When I take out some nine and ten year olds from another school with Easi-Speaks next week I will know what I'm doing.

4. The response of the market traders to the children was a joy to witness. They were very generous of themselves and of their time. The kids even came away with sweets and bunches of flowers. A heart-warming day all round.

5. And finally, it really is a very handy piece of kit.

Easi-Speak

I am starting work on two projects in different primary schools later this month. In both cases the schools are interested in encouraging the exploration of soundscapes. Although their approaches differ, each school has recently invested in a number small microphones that contain a 128MB memory. Called Easi-Speaks http://www.tts-group.co.uk/Product.aspx?cref=TTSPR1081690, they look and feel like toys which is great because they are lightweight, robust and not in the least intimidating. Being unfamiliar with them I borrowed an Easi-Speak and took it on a trip to Amsterdam last weekend.

I have a Zoom H4 that I use for location recording because it is very portable and records high quality wav files. It has phantom power for external mics as well as a stereo pair of high quality built-in mics. It runs on a pair of AA batteries, records in a variety of formats and has virtually limitless memory, especially if I take along a spare flash card. It will fit in any large pocket.

The Easi-Speak records mp3 files at 128kbps or wav files at64kbps, neither of which makes for hi-fidelity but which makes its memory go much further. To charge its integral battery it requires a dedicated charger or else a computer that will charge it via its USB port. This can be a problem in the field, as I discovered when I accidentally left it switched on, although not recording, and the battery went flat. I don't know how easy it would be to incorporate an automatic switch off if it has been idle for any length of time. I can see this being a problem for children on field trips. The good news is that files already recorded into the memory are not lost.

The microphone doubles as a loudspeaker and there is a headphone socket so it is possible to play back files although, without any kind of display, playback is best done via a computer when back at base.

One feature I am very pleased to find omitted is 'automatic level control'. When ghetto blasters came fitted with a microphone – useful for recording band rehearsals onto cassette back in the eighties – they automatically adjusted the volume level to prevent overloading the medium. A crude form of compression, in fact. In a nutshell it makes the loud sounds quieter and the quiet sounds louder, including all the background noise you would rather do without. On my test-run I recorded myself approaching a barrel organ, passing by and walking on. If I play the sound back now and close my eyes I can see it all vividly as the music fades in and out again. With automatic level control the volume would have remained fairly constant with background noise and hiss morphing into music and back to noise again.

The downside is that it is possible to overload the microphone by holding it too close to the mouth when singing or speaking, but good microphone technique is a useful skill that is easily acquired. Given the choice I would always opt for the ability to control levels myself, even if the odd take is ruined by overloading the mic.

So, all in all, a fabulous piece of kit for the money – a mere £29.99 from the manufacturers (less if you buy five at a time). Just as for some trips you just want to take along a little point-and-shoot camera rather than a bulky SLR, so this is tiny enough to carry on the off chance of coming across something interesting. I want one! And I'm looking forward to learning a few tricks from the kids when we take them with us on field trips.