• Wolverton Words - an 8 week project. First of all we were told about the project by Roger, Jane and Philippa of Living Archive and we talked about what we hoped to work out about language by comparing how different generations of people spoke who were born and brought up in Wolverton.
  
  
• We learned how to devise questions to ask people as part of the interviewing skills sessions.
  
• We learned how to set up the equipment and how to set up the recording room.
• We learned where to set the chairs for people being interviewed and how close to place the microphone near the interviewee's mouth.
  
• We learned how to set up and use the mini disk recorder and how to set and monitor the record levels during the interview and how to play back the recording.
  
  
• We sent a questionnaire home via each child in the school which asked where members of the last 3 generations of the family were born. We wanted to find people who were born and brought up in Wolverton to interview for the project.
  
• We set up the interview room - maps of Wolverton circa 1930 and 2000 were pinned on the wall to show how it has changed. Check lists were put up as reminders of interview skills.
  
• We brainstormed how to get more people - advertise the project - posters - flyers - press releases .
  
• Brainstormed question categories: names of places, games, nicknames, rhymes, jokes, songs.
  
• Developed questions and tried out on each other to practise recording and interviewing techniques
  
  
• Set up interviews with children from lower school who were born and brought up in Wolverton.
  
• Posters and leaflets were made and put around Wolverton asking for people who were born and brought up in Wolverton to contact us to be interviewed.
  
• The finished question sheets were typed up on the computer.
  
• People were invited to come to school to be interviewed.
  
• Interviews: we split into teams of 4 to interview people from different generations who were born and brought up in Wolverton.
  
• We made sure that people gave their permission for us to use their voices on the web. They filled in permission forms.
• We logged the interviews then recorded them on to the computer to edit them.
  
• We had to listen really hard to work out the similarities and diffferences in the way different generations spoke and pronounced certain words.
  
  
• We learnt how to edit the sound on the computer.
  
• Each sound clip was logged then given a name.
  
  
• We did some video filming of clapping and skipping games.
  
• We learnt how to edit the video on the computer.
  
  
• We each drew our own portraits.
  
• We took digital pictures of all the people we interviewed.
  
• We scanned our self portraits and old photographs of our interviewees.
  
  
• We sorted and transcribed the sound files deciding which was to go on the different web pages.
• We wrote descriptions of the sounds that we were comparing for the accent page.
• We wrote the introductions to the web pages.
• We sized and placed the pictures on the web pages.

The aim of the project was to involve the children at all stages of the process so that they had the opportunity to experience as many aspects of the research, method and presentation of the project as possible.

There are a number of practical points that need to be highlighted when planning and running this kind of project. Small group work is essential - groups of 4 for interviewing, groups of 3 for filming, sets of 2 for sound and film editing, 2s for scanning and sizing pictures, 2s for logging recordings, transcribing and typing.

The children were able to work well in half hour sessions if they were working in pairs. Preparation, filming and interviewing sessions were longer, up to 1 hr.

Try to define clearly what it is that you are investigating so that your questions will lead to the answers you require, rather than gathering loads of material. Are there particular sounds in particular words that you want to compare? How can you make sure that your interviewees will answer using those words?

Technical equipment needs to be set up with the appropriate software for scanners, sound and video editing and web design. We used iMovie2 for the video editing running on an iBook which we had on loan and took into school with us. We used Fast Edit on several of the school PCs for the sound editing and also occasionally used SoundEdit 16 on an iMac. Adobe GoLive was used to build the CD-ROM and website. All of the above applications are easy to use and the children had no difficulty learning to use the software. The skills learned during sound editing were tranferable to video editing. The children enjoyed both processes and found them challenging.

Preferably have computers networked so that everyone is able to work on the same thing in the same way. A lot of extra work was made for us by using school PCs that had no file sharing capability, but luckily they did all have access to the internet, a solo iMac, an iBook with the video editing program, and a PC equipped office to bring the project together outside of school hours and restrictions. We managed by using the Living Archive webspace to store large sound, video and image files whose formats were by their nature cross platform.

This project involved working on PCs and iMacs which meant different programmes. This led to difficulties in the sound file compressions for the web. The ideal situation of networking and putting the information on the server ensures that all the information is kept in the same place rather than scattered between a number of machines in a number of different locations.

Teaching staff need to know what is going on and advance planning and timetabling can ensure that not only all children get to work on the project but hopefully teachers will get the opportunity to see the project and their students in action as well as getting some hands on training as well.

Some technical tasks need to be carried out without the children. Some of the repetitive tasks eg. compressing sound files and initial web page design needs one person working on them to be consistent.

Make sure you ask the children about the project as a whole and feedback to them what has been happening as the weeks progress so that they gain an insight of the overall project, not just the isolated tasks that they have performed.