Course Overview

In this class you will collaborate with classmates and with the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI) to create a podcast series that explores science teaching and student experience at Harvard from the colonial period to this semester's transition to online classes. The underlying goal of the project will be to help the Harvard community understand this semester's unprecedented changes in a longer context. You will locate and research stories, conduct interviews, collect environmental sounds and music and stitch it all together into a compelling narrative.

As we work on the podcast project we will ask questions rooted in public history and museum practices— questions about how to make history useful and relevant to communities in the present. How do you make specialized knowledge accessible to people who are not experts? How can history help create or transform a community? How does academic work change when the conversation includes a wider set of voices? How do you incorporate the experiences of a diverse set of stakeholders and actors, especially taking into account disparities based on race, gender, and class? The perspectives and skills we develop will be applicable far beyond the specific topic of this class.

This class will be of interest to anyone who wants to make a podcast, do publicly engaged research, explore the history of science teaching, or work collaboratively in a project-based learning environment.

• Take this class if you want to...
• Weekly Activities
• Individual Assignments
• The Podcast Project
• Technical Requirements
• About me
• About CHSI

Take this class if you want to...

Make a Podcast

Podcasting is a great medium for sharing ideas with a broad audience. Podcasts are wildly popular and attract listeners who are interested in topics that would be too niche for traditional broadcast media. They can be made inexpensively with basic technical knowledge. Podcasts are also a great way to learn skills that can be used to make other media products.

In this class, you will learn the skills needed to create a great sounding podcast. You will be able to take what you learn in this class and make your own thing.

Share Ideas With Non-Specialists

This class is rooted in public history and museum practice and draws inspiration from journalism and audio-documentary making. All of these perspectives offer tools for engaging a broad audience.

You will learn how to uncover public relevance, how to communicate complex ideas in a simple and compelling way, and how to include broader perspectives in your work. Although we will focus on the Harvard community in our project, these skills will serve you well within the university and beyond.

We will also learn about and use the kinds of racial equity tool kits used by cultural organizations to counter systemic racial bias and create more inclusive content.

Explore the History of Science Education

Science teaching has changed time and again. The move to an online format for Fall 2020 is only the latest transformation in a much longer history. Exploring this history points to lessons about the role of higher education in America, the organization of scientific research, assumptions about the nature of scientific knowledge, and more.

Work Collaboratively on a Project

This class is organized around a complex, open-ended, real world project. This means that you will have the opportunity to apply the skills and perspectives you learn in an authentic context. This can help you, as a student, have ownership of your learning.

We will also work on this project collaboratively. Together, we will decide on the specific theme for the series, the episode topics, the production schedule, products, and evaluation criteria. The result will reflect each of our best ideas. Along the way, we will practice brainstorming, consensus decision making, and project management. Each of these skills is valuable in a wide variety of professional, academic, and personal settings.

Weekly Activities

This class will involve many of kinds of engagement and learning. Reading and class meetings are only part of a broader slate of activities. During most weeks you will read, listen to podcasts, watch a technical tutorial, participate in a Slack discussion, and attend a zoom meeting. These tasks will be balanced so that the total time needed is comparable to other classes. Weekly activities will be part of your participation grade.

Read

Over the course of the semester we will read books and articles that will provide inspiration, broad perspectives, grounding in the history of pedagogy, and specific technical practices. We will discuss these readings via Slack and in class discussions and will fold lessons into project work.

Two key books will be The Art of Relevance Links to an external site. by Nina Simon and Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound edited by John Biewen and Alexa Dilworth. We will be reading all of both. They are available online at no cost. Other reading materials will be either available through the library's digital resources or scanned and added to Canvas.

Listen

We will develop our knowledge of audio storytelling by listening to 45-60 minutes of podcasts each week. I have selected some pieces to start out, and we will collaboratively extend the list with your recommendations and preferences. Everything we listen to will have interesting and valuable content, but we will primarily be listening for structure and technique.

Each week you will informally answer a few questions to help ground your listening. You will also choose one week to create a more detailed outline and analysis of a podcast.

Episode selections will include: The History of the World in 100 Objects Links to an external site. from the British Museum and BBC, Radiolab Links to an external site. from WNYC Studios, the “Seeing White” miniseries Links to an external site. from Scene on the Radio, and Jill Lapore’s Last Archive Links to an external site..

Learn a Skill

Each week will feature a specific how-to video or short article. There may be small practice activities associated with these tutorials.

Tutorials will cover skills like finding interesting stories, editing audio in Audacity, conducting interviews, finding Creative Commons music and sounds, and setting up a podcast feed.

Participate in Slack Discussion

In this class we will use Slack to begin our discussion of materials, topics, and project tasks. During class time, we will pick up the most interesting topics from the online discussion. By generously participating in this forum, we will be able to work collaboratively without spending too much time in Zoom meetings. I will launch the Slack discussion with some prompts, but I hope that the discussions will focus on what you find most interesting and valuable. You will be expected to both post thoughts and respond to classmates posts each week.

Attend a Zoom Meeting

Our two hour weekly meeting will be our chance to connect in real-time about some key topics. We will talk about the most significant topics from the slack discussion. We will also use this time to collaboratively develop the overall podcast project including brainstorming, making consensus decisions, scheduling and assigning project tasks.

Individual Assignments

These are small individual assignments designed to give you an opportunity to practice key skills that will be useful in creating a full podcast episode. These will be individually graded. You will also give and receive peer feedback on each (except for the final reflection paper, which will not be shared with your classmates).

Voice Memo Summary

Set-up: Imagine you just read something amazing and can’t wait to share it with a friend. They are not available, so you leave them a voice message describing what you read. (You might have to suspend your disbelief on this set up, since even people still left voice messages, a 5 minute message would probably be a bit much).

Task: For this project you will create a 2-5 minute voice memo summary of a piece of academic writing of your choice. The summary should be tailored to a randomly assigned classmate.

Set-up: Imagine the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI) is creating an audio tour for a new exhibit. An object you recommended for the exhibit is going to be included and you have been asked to record an stop for the audio tour.

Task: Record a 2-4 minute audio tour stop that describes an object from the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and shares something significant about it.

Practice Interview

Set-up: Imagine the History of Science Department is launching an outreach program that features students talking about what they are learning. You have been asked to conduct an interview with a classmate about something they find interesting.

Task: Conduct a 30 minute interview with your assigned partner and edit the interview to a 5 minute highlight montage.

Final Reflection Paper

Task: Write 4-6 pages reflecting on your experience this semester. This paper is an opportunity to reflect on your work during the class, discuss the successes and frustrations of the project, and identify the most significant things you learned.

The Podcast Project

The core activity of the class will be to create a podcast miniseries that uses the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments to explore the history of science teaching at Harvard. You will work in small groups or individually to each create an episode. Each episode might be 15-20 minutes long, weaving together narration, interviews, environmental sounds, and music to create a compelling, audio-rich story.

We will work collaboratively to design and plan the miniseries. Together we will decide on the topics to cover, the format and number of episodes, and the production process and schedule.

We will work together to identify tasks and milestones throughout the semester. The goal will be to develop concepts during the first third of the semester, research and record interviews during the second third, and begin editing during the final third. Final editing, formatting, and posting will happen during reading period.

The project will depend on everyone in the class taking ownership and responsibility for its success.

Technical Requirements

You will not need any special audio equipment for this class. We will use cell phones for most audio recording. The webcam microphone and camera you use for Zoom would also be sufficient for recording. A regular pair of headphones will make recording and editing easier.

You will need to install audio editing your computer. We will use a free open-source program called Audacity Links to an external site.. It is a small efficient program that should run on most modern computers. You could also Garage Band or other audio editing software.

A podcast app might make podcast listening more convenient, but is not required.

Please contact me if you have any concerns about technical or physical access.

About Me

I’m a historian of technology by training, a public historian by trade, and a tinkerer by inclination. I believe that understanding where things come from and how they change (history) and taking a close look at their underlying nature (philosophy) can make it easier to navigate our world and imagine a better future. I have a long list of things I’m curious about and I am always looking for opportunities explore and share what I find.

My research has been on the the history of work, technology, the built environment, and cooperative and alternative economies. I've presented what I've found in a wide variety of formats, including museum exhibits, videos, podcasts, elementary school programs, walking tours, and more.

I’ve spent much of my career working in museums. I have been the director of interpretation at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA, the director of curatorial services at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, WA. I am currently the director of administration at Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments and a lecturer in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard.

See some of my projects at: restlessdevice.com Links to an external site.

About CHSI

The core mission of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI) is to acquire, preserve, document, and care for over 20,000 instruments portraying the history of science teaching and research at Harvard from the Colonial period to the 21st century. Through its lively exhibit and teaching programs, web presence, and increasing involvement in critical media practices, the CHSI’s research activities and cultural initiatives intersect and bring together a multiplicity of academic disciplines and areas of professional museum expertise. The CHSI is both a specialized institution and an experimental space, where Harvard faculty and students, instrument scholars and museum experts meet in the production of object-based knowledge.



Learn more at: chsi.harvard.edu