For my Instructional Audio E-Portfolio course we were tasked with creating a short 2-5 minute, audio only instructional activity. I selected identifying the current Moon phase.

Title: Identifying the Moon Phase
Client: Personal Project
Made with: Pages, GarageBand, Audacity
Time in Development: 6 hours and an additional 2 hours for recording and post production.
Collaborators: Solo-Project
Background
Many people in the general public are only aware of the Full Moon phase because of its notoriety in television and movies. There are eight major moon phases we can see in the twenty-eight day cycle.
Solution Developed
This audio is a quick and reusable tool for identifying the moon phase. With the moon changing through its cycle during the course of a month it is possible of the learners to make several encounters with the moon’s appearance. It was important to include the proper names as the crescent phase is at times misnamed as the nail clipping or croissant. Many members of the public are taught the full, quarters, and crescent phases but skip over the gibbous moon phases. This instructional audio includes techniques for identifying gibbous phases and waxing or waning subtypes.
This lesson was limited to have no imagery to go with it so descriptive terms were used to help identify the different phases. The opening is also a secondary instruction helping the learner to understand that the moon is the same size if it is high in the sky or close to the horizon.
A challenge that was presented was originally this audio was going to be recorded outside so natural ambient sound could be use. When it was time to record it was later in the evening and there were airplanes flying overhead about once per twenty minutes. I attempted to remove the plane sound using filters and effects in GarageBand and Audacity. It was then decided to record indoors and using timing to minimize the motor sound heard inside the home.
Results
This audio project was useful for me to practice using using Audacity and GarageBand plugins and filters to minimize background noises. A major takeaway for this project was the importance of rehearsal of the script and recording those rehearsals. I was able to hear where I needed to put a little more of a pause in to make it so the learner was going to be able to pause the audio without cutting a word in half while listening.