I listen because your words compel me.

I listen because your voice enriches my life.

As you share your voice, through text, words, images, voice recordings or videos you add depth and meaning to what it means to be human. I just wanted to let you know – I’m listening.

This goes to you Laurie Azzi. You wrote about Why I Write. Your voice resonates and echoes against my own memories of car rides, unfortunate accidents that shaped my childhood, and images of myself, shaped by my past and present.

This goes to you Chris Friend. Your post on Hybrid Pedagogy – Giving Voice to Written Words –  compels me to create more resonance with my writing. You words spoke to me about why Laurie’s ‘text evokes a sound’. You encourage me to ‘talk more’, to ‘write to make ourselves heard’.

This goes to you Maha Bali, Rebecca Hogue and Autumm Caines. Your voices bring together a chorus of others through Virtually Connecting. Voices that share ideas and celebrate discourse. Voices that don’t always agree but come together to collectively complement or harmonize through conversations and laughter. I often return and re-listen to completed Virtually Connecting conversations and video recordings using the text from the close captioning to clarify and simplify the symphony of voices.

This goes to you Doug Belshaw and Dai Barnes. TIDE podcasts bring your voices into my world while I drive. Ideas spill through my sound system and I listen attentively to your kitchen conversations that weave your experiences through and between my own. Each week I listen and enjoy the humour, the insights and the connections you explore with new ideas. Engaging in your conversations using Anchor.FM was an opportunity not to be missed. Your invitation to participate in the recording of TIDE #71: Slacking off (Pt 2) encouraged me to ‘talk more’.

I’ve recorded my own voice (My Voice is My Choice) as a practice of self-listening. Hearing my written text through a voiced recording, played back in stops and starts, helps me clarify writing, reading and the flow of ideas. As Chris Friend reflects “spoken text offers an opportunity for richer involvement with the content”. For me, it’s a reciprocal relationship between sounds and written ideas.

In the past I’ve asked my students to record themselves and post these recordings to their blog. Using openly accessible digital tools, they tinker while recording their voices for digital space. The mere thought of recording, let alone listening to their own voices, can be daunting. The technical challenges of creating a recording and embedding this to their blog is a process of making decisions, shaped by digital identity considerations. Some use SoundCloud while others explore alternatives such as Audacity or Garage Band. Weaving a link back to their blog sites or embedding the audio file adds to the decision making process. Students problem solve as they work through the many little steps to make this happen since digital difficulties and issues often emerge. Digital fluencies are modelled as they find ways to make things work to suit their personal needs and preferences, honouring the voice being shared, while also considering their audience.

There are many voices in my digital spaces, more than I can mention. These voices colour my days with shades and tones. Each day brings an opus of ideas through a variety of texts, images and recordings. Sometimes it’s the assignments students create to complete course expectations. Other days it’s serendipity that leads me to listen deeply. Colourful concertos in digital spaces can become masterpieces of dissonant and disparate voices to explore.

Just thought I’d reach out and let you know – I’m here and I’m listening.

Your words are compelling.

Image Attribution:

Hands – https://morguefile.com/search/morguefile/5/words/pop

Diamond on music sheet – https://morguefile.com/search/morguefile/5/diamond%20on%20music/pop