It was great to get into some hands on learning as our group progressed through this project. Brainstorming, in retrospect, was the hardest and easiest part. At the brainstorming level we expressed our ideas freely, but it was difficult to find a coherent focal point. The idea of a Halloween-based program was agreed upon to fit the time of year; also, working with scary sounds and atmospheres seemed like a cool way to integrate our developing multimodal skills. We wanted to make something that told a good scary story, but was also informative about Halloween’s history and place in American culture.
You’ll notice the “shocker” beginning–it’s a clip of Jane reading instructions on how to read instructions while actually carving a pumpkin. We thought it was a good way to set the mood : )
Matt’s segment involves personal scary stories originating from his family circle. The main story as told by his brother Justin is told from his memories of high school and college.
Sara ends the show with a discussion on the commodification of fear.
You’ll notice the dark and scary aural sounds throughout–this was really the most fun part of the project! Finding good sounds on freesounds.org and editing them into the show was exciting as we could watch it all coming together. The sound effects really bring a new element to our show and we hope you enjoy them!
A clip of the show before it was finally edited, without Sara’s segment:
http://soundcloud.com/dashboard
The finished project:
forestdwellers86 
I had a great time working on this with you guys, and I think we all brought different experiences and ideas to the project. Despite the disadvantage of not living close to each other, I think we did a great job collaborating and picked up some useful skills for implementing a project like this in our classrooms for the future!
You’re right, Matt. I think finding a topic and settling on segments and a cohesive theme was one of the most difficult aspects of the project. I also want to say that I loved the sound effects that your group chose! That is what first struck me about your podcast, and it was consistent all the way through. Really nice job!
I found the commodification of fear bit as well as the histroy of Halloween to be pretty interesting. I think that the inclusion of these peices illustrates how this type of multimodality can be easily incorporated into research projects or student presentations. You’re brother’s stories were good too, Matt. I think you have a good voice for NPR.