• digital storytelling,  empowerment,  japan,  media literacy,  story

    Tribute forms

    “How can people participate without  necessarily having to be centre stage?” That’s a question I’ve been asking myself ever since discussing digital storytelling with a colleague, Grahame Davies, last year. My experience of Digital Stories is that they’re usually personal. This aspect of ‘talking about myself’ raises a barrier in some people and cultures. This was an issue raised by some people I met in Japan earlier this year. Last night, on TV, I saw a piece of video that stands as a good example of a ‘tribute form’. Look at the first 55 seconds of the video clip on this page. It’s in Welsh. It features  people who live…

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment,  media literacy,  timeless,  Wales

    Making Space workshops using more accessible digital storytelling tools

    I’ve always been puzzled by this paradox:  people get so many new skills by making their first digital story …. yet most people only ever produce one digital story. It was  Jenny Kidd, whose PhD subject was Digital Storytelling at the BBC, who drew my attention to this. The team at University of Glamorgan (called South Wales University since 2013) has been exploring lowering some of the barriers to continuation by devising forms that use widely-available online production tools and social media tools. Carwyn Evans, Lisa Heledd Jones and Susie Pratt of BBC Wales and University of Glamorgan held a workshop in Aberystwyth just before DS3 where they led a…

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment,  instruction,  story,  timeless,  Wales

    Archive meets storytelling

    I’m hoping this is useful to people working in museums or with film archives…. I’ve written about Rhondda Lives! here before. This is a Valleys Kids Project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, BBC Wales and the National Sound and Screen Archive of Wales. I led a workshop held at Valleys Kids’ Soar Chapel at the end of November. This was a novel kind of digital storytelling experience because it fits edited, considered but unscripted personal reminiscence with existing archive footage shot in the Rhondda Valley between 1926-1986 or so. I’ll post a link to the stories from Aberth when they’re live. Step 1  – attend public screening at Valley’s…

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment,  media literacy,  timeless

    What God looks like

    Hamish Fyfe: ‘I remember being in a classroom in Northern Ireland where the children were drawing. I noticed one little girl of about seven and asked her what she was drawing. “I’m doing a drawing of God” she said. I said I thought that was interesting since a lot of people didn’t really know what God looked like. “Oh”, she said, “that’s alright, they will in a minute”.’ That’s a story Prof. Fyfe told at University of Glamorgan last night as he set out his vision for society where there are exciting new spaces set out for the arts. He show digital stories and compared today’s You Tube age with…

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment,  media literacy

    Media Literacy Summit

    I had an interesting day at the Media Literacy Task Force’s Digital Media Literacy Summit at Channel 4 in London yesterday. “Right now there are more than 300 million people around the world watching video content online. It’s a fundamental shift that completely democratises our business.” Peter Chernin, News Corp. (Jon Gisby’s slide; I think this is the source.) Yes, democracy can be served by absorbing content but it’s participation is what makes the democracy vibrant … and that isn’t happening yet because only: “0.16% of YouTube users  upload to YouTube” (Ewan McIntosh‘s slide – photo of  Guardian chart, May 2007) I’d really hoped for more from the Task Force…

  • empowerment,  Wales

    Participative media in the mass media

    My friend and colleague Rhys Williams just showed me a website he’s project managed for a new Welsh-language TV show for young people called Mosgito. I haven’t watched it yet but judging by the website  this looks like a fantastic show, where the producers have woven elements of participative media into the on-air programme. They’ve recruited a team of participants – Gwegang – who use their own webcams to record pieces for the show. Other kinds of participation are also encouraged. In the Citcreu (create-kit) area, there are video tutorials on storytelling, camerawork, animation as well as uploaders so authors can share their work. It’s great to see a programme…

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment,  story,  timeless,  Wales

    It’s about the story

    I gave a brief presentation about digital storytelling in Wales on behalf of BBC Wales as part of last night’s RTS Wales Media Literacy Network event at the University of Glamorgan’s new Atrium building in Cardiff. DK of Mediasnackers blogged the session here. I wanted to show a digital story called Set Free by Dean Byfield during my presentation. I invited Dean to come along and he and his wife Hailey were kind enough to come. There was heartfelt applause at the end of his story and Dean stood up and made a storming off-the-cuff speech about his experience of making his digital story. Here’s an outline of my presentation…

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment

    New changes to Aberth Digital Storytelling

    I’ve changed this site so you can now add your comments to any post. You do this either at the bottom of the post’s own page or by clicking on the word ‘comments’ or ‘no comments’ at the end of the item on the homepage. I’m hoping the anti-spam device works and I’ll keep an eye on it over the coming weeks. Happy commenting! The design’s been re-vamped. I lost some categorisation in the migration and I’ll try to fix this in future.

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment

    Therapeutic effects of digital storytelling

    Some people who make a digital story telling report that telling and sharing their story helped make them feel better. The word ‘catharsis‘ is used in evaluation quite often. Digital storytelling is also being used in the field of dementia; Ysbyty Tri Chwm in south Wales leads the field in this, as far as I know. The Arts Council of Wales has published a draft strategy (link to PDF file) on Arts in Health and Well-being. They’re opening it up for public consultation. I’d love to see mention of digital storytelling in this document and I’m mentioning this in case anyone reading this would like to feed into this consultation.…

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment,  technology

    Thin-client networking

    I’ve been following the Ndiyo story for some months now. It’s a way that many people can share just one computer and one internet connection by using Linux’s multiple-users capability and a ‘magic box’ plugged into the ethernet connection. Then, each user needs only a keyboard, mouse and screen. The single internet connection can be via a cellphone. Here’s 200 seconds of explanation of a set-up in South Africa via a YouTube video: http://www.ndiyo.org/news/attridgeville I’d be interested in exploring such a set-up for a Digital Storytelling workshop.