Pittsburgh Youth Radio Corps

We spent the afternoon in the Saturday Light Brigade Broadcast studios designing pieces to fill out our programming.  Some of the girls went into the production booth and used online resources to help them develop a song about radio.  We…

We’re just past the halfway point in the Summer Dreamers Academy for 2010! Today we recorded our commercials and began writing songs and raps to fill out our program for the week. We’ll continue working on these tomorrow, as well as begin putting together radio plays for Friday.

Week 3 found us taking a class trip to the other side of the museum where The Saturday Light Brigade broadcasting studios are located.  There we received an interactive demonstration of how radio programming works: playing commercials, using sound-bytes, placing…

Today many campers began to record their “5 sounds stories” using H2s. The kids are now able to use the digital recorders autonomously, and so were able to find quiet spaces to record by themselves. One story involves a boogie-man on a campground, another is a classic tale of cops and robbers. Each story will be infused with sound effects on Monday, after the campers get a tour of our radio station and see how a radio show is put together, hosted by our Director of Education Jeff Baron.

Today campers listed the sound effects that they liked from this week. Then they had to pick five, and string them together to form a story.  Tomorrow, we’ll record them performing both their pieces, and the accompanying sound effects to…

Today, campers were introduced to radio plays and how sound effects are used to enhance a story. We listened to Ray Bradbury’s “Zero Hour”, a sci-fi tale about an alien invasion. With the scripts present, we were able to see the instructions for sound effects while listening to the results in the audio. Tomorrow, we’ll make our own sound effects and receive a demonstration from Bricolage Theater’s Tami Dixon.

Today campers received instructions for a project that were given out of order. First they had to arrange the directions in the correct order, and then they put to work creating microphones out of paper machete. Great job Pgh Youth Radio Corps!

Today campers each created an audio gift card as a present to a specific person. They wrote poems, raps, and verses as part of the text for the card. Some worked by themselves, and some in groups. After decorating their text and cards, they recorded each other reciting their pieces using the zoom H2 digital recorder, some of which are below.
Poem by Jessica Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Rap by Brannon, Cherron, Derrick and LaMont Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Poem by Dannesha Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Poem by Tamara Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Poem by WillaMae Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

These original compositions were written by the Pittsburgh Allegheny K-5 Young Writers’ Club. Participating 3rd and 4th graders met after school on a regular basis, wrote and polished their projects, and recorded them in their classroom using portable recorders.

GirlTalk Radio is a youth radio program in which students learn research, interviewing and digital audio editing to create a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts.  These radio pieces are also featured on StoryBox units.

Girl Talk Radio PPG Edition…