Get Involved

We welcome new contributors! 

If you teach courses related to sound and audio culture, we can support you as you incorporate Sonic Dictionary contributions into your class assignments.

What students learn

Student participants learn skills in multimedia composition and enhance their digital and sonic literacies. Specifically, students learn the fundamentals of audio recording and editing as well as principles of metadata and digital data curation. Creating entries for the Sonic Dictionary provides a wonderful bridge to more in-depth multimodal projects and we have found that the experiential learning opportunity  deeply enhances student's abilities to think about sound and sonic culture. 

Testimonial from a student participant:

I think all of the students in this class learned a lot more from this project than they would have writing a paper. It still required a lot of critical thinking, but in an unconventional way that challenged us.  Creating the sonic dictionary was a refreshing break from the normal, boring assignments students often receive. I love that we all have some ownership of a project that won’t immediately get buried in a drawer, but instead can be explored and appreciated by others in the future. It’s a very satisfying feeling.

What instructors need to know

To learn more about participating in the project, please contact Mary Caton Lingold at mclingold@vcu.edu. Students do not need specialized recording equipment to participate, however we do encourage people to use high-quality recorders (such as Zoom H4Ns) if they are accessible at your institution. We have sample lesson plans and instructional materials to get you and your students on board with the project. We recommend dedicating roughly 2.5 hours of class time to the project. (Learning to record and contribute, and workshoping new material.) 

Sample Class Schedule:

Monday
Class: Field-recording how-to, listening walk (50 mins)
Homework: Complete Audacity training videos 

Wednesday
Class: How to log-in and add content to Sonic Dictionary (20-50 mins)
(Students bring an edited recording that they plan to contribute to the Sonic Dictionary, work on editing, and uploading in class) 
Homework: Create and upload Sonic Dictionary entries

Monday
Class: Review & discuss students’ entries, plan revisions. (30-50 mins)
Homework: Students edit and complete their entries.