Atticus Madden records his podcast as Elbeg Erdenee and Katie Conard look on.

Katie Conard records her podcast.

Atticus Madden is listening to his own voice on the computer, trying to tweak it a bit before it’s available for the whole world to hear on the Internet.

“Just a few cosmetic changes,” she says, looking a screen with soundwaves and deleting a few stutterings.

He just got done recording a review of the painting “Meditation,” by Alexander Archipenko, a piece in the collection of the Spencer Museum of Art at Kansas University.

This is the second year that eighth-graders in Danielle Lotton-Barker’s advanced communication class at Southwest Junior High School have recorded reviews of artwork at the Spencer, to be posted on the museum’s Web site.

“Their interpretation is often quite eye-opening,” says Sorcha Hyland, an education coordinator with the Spencer. “Many people who have listened to last year’s podcasts have been impressed with a new layer of interpretation.”

Lotton-Barker says the students took a two-hour tour of the Spencer earlier this semester to choose what works they wanted to review.

She says knowing their work will be posted on the Internet gives students special incentive.

“I think it makes them kick it up a few notches in terms of quality,” Lotton-Barker says.

The goal was to both combine the historical context of the art and the painter with the students’ own reaction to the piece.

Student Eddie Loupe says he chose “Dinner Conversation with Nancy,” by Lawrence artist Roger Shimomura.

“To describe it wasn’t hard,” he says. “But to make inferences on each of the small parts of it, and describe what they mean, was harder.”

Anna Springer, meanwhile, chose “Early Self-Portrait,” by Otto Dix.

“Parts of that painting just really seemed to speak to me,” she says. “I could feel a whole lot more feeling about that than any piece. I’m hoping people can see the underlying emotion of the painting.”

The Spencer’s Hyland hopes the program continues into the future. She’s been in touch with other schools to bring more students into the museum.

“It’s extremely organic,” she says. “It’s a hands-on experience students in other parts of the state wouldn’t have because they don’t have an institution like the Spencer.”