Example of Instructional Audio



Last year I assigned a selection from Joseph Besse's A Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers (1753) to my Comparative Religions class. It's a great text, but unfortunately the only modern edition is a reprint of the 18th century printing, which has s's that look like f's, and my students found it hard to read. Now, I think it is reasonable to expect college students to be able to handle a text like this, but in a religious studies course the value of a reading like this lies in its content rather than its typography, so if providing students with a more accessible version of the text helps them study it carefully, then there really isn't any reason not to provide an alternate format. I began to think that an audio version might be easier for some students, but I don't want to assume that it would work better for all students. So here I present the beginning of Ch. 5 of Besse's book in a variety of formats.

  • Download in MP3 format. Right-click the link and save to your computer.
    Then, if you like, save to your I-Pod and listen at your leisure.
    You may be able to play this file directly through your web browser; if not, try the following link.
  • Play in streaming audio directly from the web.
    Requires Real Player, which can be downloaded here (though it comes preinstalled on most computers).
  • Read a pdf version of this passage, reproduced from the 18th century printing.
  • Read this passage in html.

Let me know what you think of this, and which format you prefer.