AVAnnotate Teaching Guide for Audio/Visual Materials

Overview

Using audio and video (AV) in teaching is difficult. It's made easier with AVAnnotate, a free application for creating projects and exhibits with audio and video held at libraries, archives, and museums—like the Harry Ransom Center. AVAnnotate is a flexible tool for educators interested in facilitating how students can easily (and for free!) present their research on AV. All that is required to build an online AVAnnotate project is three things: access to audio or video (and a computer) and their ideas about AV.

A good way to start using AVAnnotate is with AV materials held by the Ransom Center. Audiovisual collections such as The Mike Wallace Interview, Stella Adler and Harold Clurman, and John Beecher Sound Recordings offer educators an opportunity to use engaging, freely accessible audio and video primary source materials to pursue a variety of learning outcomes. For instance, student learning outcomes could include:

• Demonstrating critical thinking and analytical skills around audiovisual media
• Evaluating how to present knowledge and scholarship in digital environments
• Developing schemas or plans for categorizing and describing audiovisual content
• Practicing interdisciplinary methods and collaborative meaning-making

Example Projects

Below are a few examples of AVAnnotate projects that demonstrate how Ransom Center AV material can be used to encourage these kinds of student outcomes across disciplines, student interests, and curricular goals. Projects such as these can be created over an entire semester or a single class. Educators, researchers, archivists, and students interested in learning more about AVAnnotate can review this quickstart guide or reach out to University of Texas at Austin professor Tanya Clement at tclement@utexas.edu.

“Annotating Sensitive Audio in the John Beecher Sound Recordings Collection”
This AVAnnotate project offers a guided lesson plan for annotating audio with sensitive information, employing Beecher's audio “‘Criminal Syndicalism' Case, McComb, Mississippi” as an example. Alongside annotations, this project provides an example lesson plan for teachers working with sensitive audiovisual material.

“The Mike Wallace Interview”
This AVAnnotate project focuses on four interviews conducted by Mike Wallace for The Mike Wallace Interview. The project offers instructors questions and student outcomes for integrating AVAnnotate into their classroom. Then, these questions and student outcomes are incorporated across the four interviews to illustrate to instructors how they can be put into practice. This project serves instructors across disciplines who are looking to use AVAnnotate in their classroom.