Roots with Wings, a Floyd County Place-Based Education Project:: Intergenerational Connections

Floyd Story Center

Since 1998, a community oral history collection partnership of the Old Church Gallery, Ltd., Radford University’s Center for Social and Cultural Research, Honors Program, Scholar-Citizen Initiative, Appalachian Regional and Rural Studies Center, and Floyd County High School. Our archives now hold over 100 interviews.

In our Roots with Wings project, college mentors, high school staff, and community volunteers meet weekly during the school year to teach the discipline of oral history collection.


Students learn ethical, methodologically sound interview techniques, practice and complete several interviews, transcribe the audiotapes, create searchable content logs, archive interviewee resources and period photographs, learn the technology of audio and video recording, research historical backgrounds, acquire proficiency in iMovie and storytelling, and finally extract a theme from an hour long interview to create a seven minute movie production.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Learning the Ropes of Technology

Behind the Camera

February 1st students from FCHS split into two groups to learn about the recording technology we will be using.  We went step-by-step from our Project Manual and instruction sheets to learn more about the video and audio technology so that once the Interview Day comes, students can properly set up and take down all the equipment.

Kathleen Ingoldsby led the way with her recording experience. Students quickly caught on to the settings and use of the Marantz digital recorder.  Soon they were on their own.  Following the guidelines from the handbook, the media class took charge and practiced audio recordings with themselves, either choosing a topic or singing ABCs.

Next, we handled the Canon XA30 video cameras. Again, students picked up on the step-by-step and quickly were behind the camera recording themselves. Once each part was practiced, the Marantz and Canon were connected using our successful technique of “double-system” shooting.



This day is significant to our interview process because students learn about the different roles for our day of interviews. While some students have an idea for the role they want to play, learning more about the equipment gives others the opportunity to engage. All around, it was a great hands-on experience for students and mentors.

No comments:

Post a Comment