Joe Lambert speaking at DS5 in Aberystwyth

“Join CDS Founder and Director Joe Lambert on a weekend walk through the old City of London to explore your story against the backdrop of London streets. Using iPhones, iPads or iPod Touch, you will shoot, record, edit and complete a short film. See http://www.storycenter.org/iphone-workshop/ for more information. Special offer – Sliding Scale $100-$300/participant. Limit 15 participants.”

For details, email workshop@storycenter.org

This sounds like a diamond opportunity for UK Digital Storytellers to learn about using the latest mobile tools to tell a story and to get a taste of the excitement of the Capital over the weekend of the Royal Jubilee celebrations.

dspod-ep02.mp3

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Cheryl Colan is a digital storyteller and trainer from Phoenix, Arizona, USA. I recorded this interview with Cheryl in Cardiff, Wales, July 2011. She was in the UK leading a Digital Storytelling summer school with Study Abroad Britain. She’s led digital training groups to Australia and her motto is Trust Your Story.

Shownotes: links
Cheryl Colan – http://hummingcrow.com
Shelley Rodrigo – http://www.committedtechnofile.com
Jim Groom – http://jimgroom.net
About Tamales (Mexican food)
Creative Commons – http://creativecommons.org
DS106 – http://ds106.us. This is open online digital storytelling course that began at the University of Mary Washington and now thrives as a community of international learners.

There’s more about Cheryl in this Aberth Digital Storytelling Blog post.

The audio is released under Creative Commons license:

Digital Storytelling Pod Ep01 by Gareth Morlais is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I’d been was introduced to Premila via email by Sarah Copeland who’d met Premila because they were both studying at Leeds Metropolitan University. So Premila and I made arrangements to meet at her office in Colombo.

I could tell straight away that Premlia was a person with a strong social conscience. She’s been investigating digital inclusion and her speciality is Policy. Bearing in mind the evidence that digital storytelling can bring about policy change via health-related projects such as Patient Voices and Story Works in the UK, using such personal accounts in Sri Lanka sounds like a promising route to ignite social change.

Premila told me that she and her fellow digital storytellers have set up Lanka Community Information Initiative – LCII.org – which works with “marginalized and disadvantaged communities to access new and old communication technologies to enhance their quality of life.”

Here’s an example of one of LCII’s digital stories. Umesha Lakshika gives a glimpse of life for students of the Prabhavi Resources Center, Werankatagoda, Ampara, Sri Lanka. The resource centre consists of a library, Nenasala (ICT centre and digital inclusion project) and classes.

Premila says LCII.org would benefit from more digital storytelling equipment to help their work in rural areas of Sri Lanka. It doesn’t have to be brand new. If you’re able to contribute digital cameras, digital audio recorders, video cameras, laptops to LCII.org, please contact them to make arrangements

I spoke with Premila via email earlier today and she said:

“At the moment we are working with Macaldeniya school and community – a very remote area in a tea estate – the most deprived members (of the Tamil ethnic group in Sri Lanka) are Estate Tamils. With the generous support of CILIP (Charted Institute of Library and Information Professionals) in the UK we built a library for the school and community. We finished with the first phase of the project – and opened the library. The next phase will be introducing DST for these people as we did in the other projects. We are desparately trying to find some support to carry out the second phase – the DST!”

Photos of the Macaldeniya project.

Further information.

International Women’s Day only comes around once a year, but the work that Premila Gamage and LCII does all year round in the poorest rural areas of Sri Lanka is really inspiring. So if you feel able to help, please do get in touch with LCII.

DS7 will be held at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales, on the 7th of June 2012.
Tickets for the day cost £40, available from the DS7 website. Here are the details from the mail-out from Karen Lewis of the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling, University of Glamorgan, who are hosting this year’s festival. This year’s speakers include:

Annie Correal of the Cowbird storytelling community

http://cowbird.com

Natasha Armstrong of the Historypin mapping-meets-storytelling project

http://www.historypin.com/

Patrizia Braga and Steve Bellis of pan-European digital storytelling partnership DeTales

http://www.detales.net/wp/partners/united-kingdom/

Alyson Fielding of the Tower of London Project.

Members of Project ASPECT will share stories of climate change

http://www.projectaspect.org

Keep an eye on the DS7 blog for more information and sessions as they are confirmed:

http://ds7festival.wordpress.com/

Here are the details in Welsh. Dyma’r manylion Cymraeg

Gwyl Straeon Digidol DS7 (Chapter, Caerdydd, 7fed Mehefin 2012)

Mae’r Ŵyl Straeon Digidol DS7 eleni yn addo ysbrydoli, annog a dangos y posibiliadau cyffrous sydd ym maes straeon digidol heddiw.

Oes ydych yn gweithio mewn addysg, yn y gymuned neu yn artist, dyma eich cyfle i rannu profiadau, archwilio syniadau creadigol newydd, gweld y diweddaraf mewn datblygiadau technolegol, edrych ar esiamplau o’r ymarferiadau gorau yn y D.U. a’r byd ac mae’n gyfle i ddathlu pwysigrwydd straeon digidol.

Mae DS7 yn cyflwyno diwrnod llawn dop o siaradwyr i’ch ysbrydoli a sesiynau ar bob dim y gallwch feddwl amdano ac mae’n gyfle euraidd i ryngweithio gyda’r gymuned adrodd straeon digidol ar hyd Cymru, y D.U. a thu hwnt.

Eleni, mae DS7 yn symud o’i leoliad blynyddol yn nhre hardd Aberystwyth, ble y cafodd ei gynnal am y chwe mlynedd diwethaf. Ar Fehefin y 7fed 2012, mi fydd yr Wyl yn cael ei gynnal yng Nghanolfan Celfyddydau Chapter, Caerdydd. Ni allwn gynnig y lleoliad hyfryd ar arfordir Cymru yr ydym wedi profi dros y chwe mlynedd diwethaf, ond rydym yn hyderus o barhau yn nhraddodiad yr Ŵyl – ymgynnull grŵp o bobl amrywiol sydd â diddordeb mewn straeon digidol yn eu cyfanrwydd at ei gilydd.

Er bod yr Ŵyl yn cael ei chynnal yng Nghymru, mae’n ymestyn at gynulleidfaoedd ar draws y DU, a’r byd. O achos hyn, Saesneg yw iaith nifer helaeth o’r cyfranogwyr a’r gynulleidfa a dyma yw prif iaith yr Ŵyl.

Tocyn £40 gan gynnwys bwyd a lluniaeth. Cysylltwch gyda DS7@glam.ac.uk am ffurflen archebu.
Am fanylion pellach ar yr Ŵyl ynghyd a gwybodaeth ar y sesiynau, ewch i flog DS7:

http://ds7festival.wordpress.com/

“If you would like to contribute to the festival, please email klewis (at) glam (dot) ac (dot) uk with an abstract of 200 – 300 words outlining what you would like to present. Please submit by February 25th 2012″ source

On the website there are videos made by 3VTV themselves as well as from partner organisations like Breaking Barriers Community Arts, Made in Tredegar, etc.

Viewers are invited to upload or suggest embed links to their own films.

I especially like the navigation of films by map. That’s after all what local and hyperlocal are all about.

To keep up to date with developments you can follow @3VTV on Twitter.

Here’s a taste of the output. It’s a video called Pins and Things about a mother and daughter – Zoe and Jay – who run a haberdashery shop in Ebbw Vale.

Please help to spread the word about 3VTV because it’s great to see a new local TV channel like this launching.

“The seventh annual Digital Storytelling festival is happening in Cardiff this year, not Aberystwyth. It will be hosted by the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling (University of Glamorgan), and will be held in Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff on Thursday June 7th.

“There will be more publicity out in due course, but I wanted to give you all the date for your diary now as you may be interested in attending.”

1. Archive Mashup
Learn how to mix diverse archive video clips and sounds.
A part-time course beginning 26 March 2012

2. Shooting for the web
Learn how to plan, script, shoot, edit and upload footage specifically for the web and mobile devices. Using Sony EX3 cameras, the trainer is Simon Walker. A three-day course from 12-14 March 2012

For details of course fees, application and selection process, go to Cyfle’s website. The courses are held in Wales.

Vlog tutorial This short video tutorial is from one of the pioneering video blogging sites.

Great tips from the Video Nation archive.

Citizen media network Witness Video Advocacy offers craft and safety tips here.

The old BBC Scotland digital storytelling project Highland Lives offered this valuable PDF document with useful tips on planning your shoot and advice about getting good sound.

Japanese participatory media research group MELL Platz is conducting a public research seminar on 10 December 2011 at the Tohoku University in Sendai, in the area which was so badly affected by the tragic events.

It’s called “Designing A New Media Forest of Japan: From Civic Generated Narratives and Memories of Post 3.11.”

The event begins with a workshop for participants to share their narratives and memories of the 3.11 east Japan great disaster.
This is followed by a panel discussion about the future media ecosystem (the Media Forest) of Japan after 3.11.

On the platform will be Kenji Kai (Sendai Mediateque), Martin Fackler (New York Times), Shin Mizukoshi (Univ. of Tokyo). Chairing the session will be Kuniko Sakata (Tohoku Univ.) and Kiyoko Toriumi (Univ. of Tokyo).
There’s more information on the MELL Platz website.
via @shinkeugri

Read also about some of the innovative projects of the “Media Exprimo” Shin Mizukoshi group.