I shared my journey to the DS6 festival of digital storytelling, with Simona Bonini Baldini and Rami Malkawi. I’ll never forget the excitement in the car as we rounded the corner of Aberystwyth’s side streets and caught our first full-on view of the sea crashing onto the West Wales shore. A magic moment. As I promised in my last post in which I reviewed DS6, here’s some more information about their respective work in the digital storytelling field. Simona’s work in Umbria, Italy, links personal reminiscence of various locations with that Region’s extensive home movie archive. Simona was delighted to meet two other women from Italy who had made the…
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- citizenship, digital storytelling, DS Cymru, education, inclusion, media literacy, mobile, museums, story, technology, Wales
DS6 digital storytelling conference review 2011
For the UK’s digital storytellers, a trip to Aberystwyth Arts Centre has been something of an annual pilgrimage for some years now. DS6 took place on Friday 16 June 2011. In keeping with previous years, here’s my review of the day. First on the DS6 stage was Angeline Koh of Singapore-based Digital Storytelling Asia. I first became aware of the interest in digital storytelling in Singapore when I wrote this blog post entitled 6,000 Storytellers four years ago. I could tell from hearing Angeline speak just how much of an inspiration Denise Atchley – wife of the late Dana Atchley – had been. Angeline says digital storytelling is still quite…
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How your own hand can help you find your story
Here’s an idea you can try at the story-origination phase of your next digital storytelling workshop. Ask everyone to place their hand on a blank piece of paper and draw round it, kindergarten style. Ask people to write a line on each digit, in response to this: Little finger: what’s the best thing that’s happened to you so far this year? Ring finger: Looking further back in time, name one highlight of your life. Middle finger: thinking of your family, what makes you most proud of being you? Did your grandfather have a fascinating job? Has your family made its mark in your town? Index finger: pointing to the future,…
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Intergenerational School Report
Students at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe, Swansea, were active in the recent BBC School Report project. Nia Davies and Beccy Leach from BBC Cymru Wales went to help the students. Here’s one of the films which is a great example of the way in which older people in the school’s community can work with school students to produce a piece of media. This is an embed of their video in Silverlight format: Cynllun Rhyng-genhedlaeth
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How to get your short film seen by 500 million
When Newport University film studies lecturer and social action broadcast specialist Peter Watkins-Hughes went to Tredegar Comprehensive School students with an idea for a short film about teenage drink driving they said: “It’s not drunk driving that’s the biggest problem; it’s texting while driving”. Peter didn’t have much of a budget, so he asked Gwent Police for help. They gave advice, use of their helicopter, their vehicles and their officers as ‘extras’. When the film was shot and edited, Peter put it on You Tube so he could send a link to BBC commissioners. Within a week, the film had had 50 views. It then rose to 200. Then Peter…
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Seven articles about helping participants capture their story in digital storytelling
The person who’s taught me more than anyone about helping people find their story is Gilly Adams. She was the main story facilitator of BBC Capture Wales and she shaped the Story Circle day so it was a close a fit as possible for the digital storyteller in Wales. At DS3 in 2008, Gilly spoke in her keynote of the gift culture of digital storytelling “…where no money changes hands but the currency is the generosity of grace in sharing stories”. The person who hears the story gains two benefits: 1. they get a unique glimpse into the heart of the teller 2. they can often say: “hey, that’s about…
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Six steps to a sustainable digital storytelling project
If you’re planning a digital storytelling project, and you want it to be a sustainable one, here are six steps to consider: 1. write an outline of the ethos your project will employ, encompassing: * fair dealing with contributors and participants, * contracting, * intellectual property and third-party rights, * licensing-on the products your participants make, * capturing and storing consents by parents/guardians/carers of minors and vulnerable people, * diversity policy * disclosure policy * how to keep participants’ personal data safe, * etc. 2. write a summary of all your storyteller recruitment methods. The difficulty of this isn’t to be underestimated, as this was an element that turned out…
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Digital Storytelling Wizard of 2010
One of the things I enjoy about Twitter is that it enables people with shared interests to meet up. During 2010, I’ve met several people who are passionate about digital storytelling just because I talk about the subject on Twitter. One of the most inspiring people I met this year was Jordanian researcher Rami Malkawi @RamiDST. He’s studying for his PhD at University of Glamorgan, Wales, under the auspices of Phil Davies – @PhilWales – who’s probably already a familiar name if you’re interested in digital storytelling in education. When I met Rami in October at the BBC canteen in Cardiff, he talked me through his plans. He’s testing a…
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Fun end-of-term digital storytelling activity
If you’re a teacher looking for something fun for the end of school term, this may be of interest. It’s a hand-drawn, very basic animation, storytelling form I’ve been experimenting with since 2003. The first one I made was called Tickling in response to a call for stories by BBC One Minute Movies. If you’d like to make your own, here are my instructions. Let me know how you get along. Written and first published by Gareth Morlais on 8 December 2010.
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Free photographic workshops in Aberystwyth
Here’s news of a free training opportunity for artists and youth workers from Aberystyth Arts Centre. The Using Photography workshop takes place over three days: 27 & 28 September and 4 October 2010. This practical workshop in B&W photography will explore good practice when taking and printing photographs, especially in relation to working with young people Sessions are FREE. There are a limited number of spaces available. For more information/to book a space please contact sob@aber.ac.uk Tel: 01970 622338 The workshops are made possible by ‘Reach the Heights’ – a major Welsh Assembly Government initiative aimed at reducing the number of young people in Wales aged 11 – 19 years…