Sounds Can Add Information

Exploring Sounds application

Activity:

1. The applet called Exploring Sounds is best used as a group activity. Show the first slide on a screen or large monitor and ask the students to guess which answer they think is correct.

2. Ask then what makes them think it. Ask for other ideas until all four options have been names and reasons for chosing them have been articulated. Then take a vote and select the answer chosen by most of the students.

3. When the sound is played, ask the students to respond to the prompts and read the feed-back aloud.

4. Ask "How could we have known that it was this answer?" Discuss until a student says that there was no way to know. Then agree and tell them that this is because the sound brings new information, more than the information contained in the picture or text.

5. Go on to the next slide. Ask students to guess and when they agree that there is no way to be sure, ask them to anticipate what kind of sound might go with each of the four options.

6. Ask for a vote and click on the most popular answer. Read the feed-back aloud.

Repeat for all four slides.

 

 

 

 

The Main Idea

When students think about adding sound to a slide, they often look for sounds that "spice up" the picture or the words. For a slide with a data chart, for instance, they might add sound effects as the numbers appear. But the numbers don't need a sound effect to make sense.

If they are making a slide to compare two sets of data, however, and they want to emphasize that one is an increase or a decrease over the other, a musical scale going up or down can make the message more dramatic - and more persuasive.

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