All good things… final thoughts

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What a ride. When we started this revamp of Radio Broadcasting 5 years ago, who thought that we’d have over 100 students create over 250 episodes on countless topics. Here are some of my “final thoughts”.

Final thoughts

Every semester we’d stumble along, learning new things:

• Audio editing
• Sound quality engineering
• Interviewing techniques
• Our own voice quality
• How much music and sound can add
• New genres and new podcasts

Students in the class always to amazed me–their creativity, their passion, their questions and willingness to try something new. We developed solid editing, interviewing, critical listening and storytelling skills. Also, we enjoyed learning from each other,

As I put together these final thoughts, I now recall life lived–the highs, lows and everything in between. Furthermore, I’m honored to see (and hear) from students past and present who’s professional and personal lives were affected from being part of the class.

The times they are a changing…

BTW, this final “promo” features something that we talked about in the last week of class–the role of technology. However, the role of communicators will change but telling good stories won’t–even with the rise of AI.

So, this promo “thank you”, was all AI-generated, except for the script. I wrote the script, but AI generated everything else.

• Cover art: Microsoft AI Image creator (prompt: “podcasting class with a bald white guy in glasses teaching.”)
• Voices: ElevenLabs.io (AI voices – Chris, Patrick, Emily, Matilde and all “read” the same script)
• Ambient Music: Loudly AI Music Generator (prompt: ambient cinematic)

What’s next?

Look for a new Podcasts for Aggies as this class evolves into a broader digital storytelling course. Podcasts themselves have grown out of just “audio-only”; they now embrace and engage across social media as well as in the video space. So, this new course will take a look at those spaces and works to show how storytelling influences and is influenced by these new media.