LBC/IRN Archive Teaching and Learning Case Study.

Abstract

The online archive provides lecturers, researchers and students with an extraordinary wealth of audio material covering the period 1973-1996. Precisely how this is best used in a teaching and learning context will probably only emerge after the resource has been used in various schools, colleges and universities. The subjects covered are so diverse that it is hard to know whether, for example, it is the history of Northern Ireland, or changing attitudes to food, which prove to be the most productive subjects. Will it be students of the media, and of course in particular radio , who exploit the archive, or those studying recent British history; political, social and cultural? There are, however, some general points worth making about the archive and how it might be used before looking in a bit more detail at what is available; 1) The archive is important both in terms of content (especially news and current affairs coverage of political, economic, social and cultural events and developments) and for also for production techniques employed (including interviews, vox pops, phone-ins, reportage and rolling news). 2) The online resource lends itself to student centred learning in which the student can explore the archive using the search and key word functions. This will probably work best as a relatively non-prescriptive task which allows the student to wander through the material in their own way (see the examples below). 3)Perhaps the most exciting archive-based student projects will include examples of audio which have been downloaded and then edited and incorporated into a web based report with audio examples, possibly within a multimedia product.