VandyVox Episode 20-“Musical Cryptography” by Audrey Scudder

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VandyVox

Education


In this episode of VandyVox, we feature a stellar piece of audio, produced by Audrey Scudder for the History of Cryptography in the department of mathematics, taught by Professor Derek Bruff. Professor Bruff is the creator of VandyVox and hosted seasons 1 and 2 of the podcast. Three years ago, he replaced a paper assignment in his first-year writing seminar with an audio assignment and has been refining the art of assigning podcasts ever since. Professor Bruff asked students to take a code or cipher from history and describe its origin, use, influence, and mechanics. Audrey fully delivered with a captivating piece the bridges the worlds of mathematics and music. Audrey told us at VandyVox that she’s always had a passion for music theory, and in particular, how music intersects with math, science and linguistics, and I think that passion shines through in this audio. She provides historical context, explains cryptography nuances, and uses music itself to augment and support the content of the podcast, and if you listen closely, you’ll hear a couple Easter eggs she hides in her audio. This is such strong, high quality student-audio because of Audrey’s research and passion for the subject matter combined with Professor Bruff’s thoughtfulness and intentionality behind the assignment. For the past three years he’s been assigning a podcast, and each year produces another iteration of project goals, rubric, and expectations. Professor Bruff said he noticed that as he built more scaffolding into the assignment, the quality of the student podcasts became stronger. Each year, he updates a blog he writes titled “Building a Better Podcast Assignment”, where he breaks down the expectations, timeline, and process of building a podcast assignment. A link to this blog, his rubric, and the project description, along with a detailed summary of his iterative process, can be found in the show notes.