Thing 27: Creaza

What a fun day I've had exploring a web tool new to me called, Creaza .  This tool is designed for educators to share with students to host multimedia projects and assignments.  I created an assignment where students would have to make a book talk that they wrote and recorded using a simple 8 layer sound mixer.  Creaza supplies a wealth of audio files you can use including music snippets and sound effects.  You can also upload or record your own files, too.

It was pretty neat learning how to build the layers and then adjust the sound volume for each layer to enhance the recording.  I did a demo of this project for the book, A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck (one of my favorites!!).  Below is a transcript of the book talk I recorded:

"Our story begins in the summer of 1929 – just before the great stock market crash – and the even greater depression that rocked the United States for a decade.  The world was terrorized by the likes of Al Capone and other notorious gangsters and life was pretty exciting in a big city like Chicago.  That’s the summer that Joey and Mary Alice were sent off to their Grandma Dowdle’s for the month of August – the first of 7 such memorable summer visits.  Coming from the bedlam and excitement of Chicago to this tiny, rural Illinois town where one can’t even find indoor plumbing, Joey and Mary Alice are faced with the task of surviving what they suspect will be boredom, but what in reality are the adventures of a lifetime!  With each August visit, Joey & Mary Alice begin to discover the remarkable woman that is their grandmother.  They help her take on the Cowgill boys, feed hungry hobos desperate for work, save her friend from foreclosure, and win the day at the county fair.  Far from a sleepy town, they find themselves transported each August to a world filled with its own unique characters and troubles that in actuality, is not so different from their own home.  Common threads like the Depression weave together to create an unforgettable image of 1930’s America.  So grab a copy of Richard Peck’s, “A Long way From Chicago” and discover for yourself what it was like growing up in this tumultuous period of American history." 

And here is a link to my project:A Long Way From Chicago

Pretty fun, eh?