I struggle with speaking. I get really nervous and am a bit of a perfectionist so I am never happy with any recordings I do. I saw that this was one of the assignment options so I took the opportunity to work on my speech and also learn how to make it better. I was actually a little happy with the work I produced!

As I was looking through the possible assignments for this week, I stumbled across one that was a challenge to better speaking skills. This is something that felt valuable to me and my future. As a future educator, I will be speaking every day. I know that I always talk too fast when I present and teach, so I watched the video and tried to plan my pauses and be more confident in the words that I was speaking. It is not perfect, but this helped me learn new skills to use when I teach. Focusing on how I was presenting information was very mind-opening.

Here are my two chosen remixing projects!

For this project I utilized google search and audacity.
First I chose the assignment, pressed remix and then went on my google search.

Then, I chose the commercial to do, recorded myself and implemented some sound effects to give the commercial a strong open and closing.

Next I imported these files in audacity making sure the file type was compatible then I exported this file onto my sound-cloud and into this blog post.

My second remix project I chose to remix my Ted Talk Practice; by butchering it and making it very pour quality! I utilized Audacity and randomized the timing of the audio files.

Enjoy!

Thank you for reading my blog.

XOXO
Danielle Erika

As an audio assignment, today I was tasked with recording myself saying the first few paragraphs of Try something new for 30 days – Matt Cutts. The goal was to focus on how I’m saying my words, such as pronunciation, inflection, pausing, and so on. Check me out. Maybe next time you hear this wonderful voice it will be from it’s own ted talk.

For this audio assignment I spoke as if I were speaking in a TEDx Talk. This gave me some more practice with my speaking skills and learning where to pause, how to pause, and use inflection in my voice. Yet, I am also already very familiar with this because I have had many speeches during my Communication years!

Here is the assignment recording:

For this all I needed was the TED Talk transcript and the video to learn where to pause according to the speech. I recorded it using my iPhone voice memos app.

For this assignment, we had to practice saying the first 2 paragraphs of the Ted Talk “Try Something New for 30 Days”. I chose this assignment for 3 stars because I have always had trouble speaking while presenting. Whether it is the usual case of I talk at rapid speeds because I’m nervous, or stuttering on words, I thought this would be great practice. While listening to the Ted Talk, I noticed that he had such a fluidity and pronunciation with his words that I wanted to replicate. So with mine, I focused on not speaking so fast, and really adding tones to my words and overall pitches of sentences. I had to try recording it a couple of times on Audacity, but I finally got a cut that I was proud of and I think demonstrates proper speech habits.

For 3 Stars: You have learned about the importance of pasuing, emphasising key words, linking, and inotnation in presentations. As aprt of your Sepaking Project #3, you will be presenting a TED Talk. This assignment will help you work on your presentation skills so that you can deliver your content professionally just like the TED Talk presenter ion this video. Watch the video below and pay attention to the pauses, how certain words have been emphasized, the linking, and the intonation pattern of the sentences. Then use the script and record the first 2 paragraphs. 

For my last audio assignment, I decided to do the “Ted Talk Pronunciation Practice” prompt.

I always struggled with giving presentations. The worst part was always getting my words jumbled around. All the random pauses and stutters are what I need to improve. Thankfully with this assignment, it’s just audio, which I think is a lot easier than giving a real Ted Talk!

This assignment took more preparation than actually making it!  To prepare, I had to watch the Ted Talk video a couple of times, the first time around took longer because I had to write down what the speaker said. Then I watched the video a second time to get a better understanding of the way the speaker was talking.

Then comes the practice. I wanted to not only say the right words but also have the right tone of voice. I read the script a few times before recording just to see how I can to put my own twist to it. I realized the Ted Talk speaker had a slideshow that went along with his speech.  Because of this, I had to remove a portion of the script so that my audio would make sense. Recording the talk took many tries. I would either have random pauses or stumble on my words. Finally, I got a take where I fully went through the whole script in one go!

How I completed this assignment:

I watched the Ted Talk video to write the script and catch details on the tone.

Like I previously mentioned, I decided to take out part of the speech. The words that I planned to skip over are highlighted in yellow.

I used the Voice Memo app on my phone to record my Ted Talk.

I used Audacity’s Effects – Amplify feature to increase the volume of my audio.

After fixing the volume, I exported the audio.

To change the audio from a WAV file, I right-clicked on the audio, and clicked “Encode Selected Audio Files”.

I selected High-Quality Encoder and clicked Continue.

The file changed from .wav to .m4a.

After that, I uploaded my audio to SoundCloud!

Matt Cutt’s TED talk “Try something new for 30 days.”