Last night was a poignant one. Even before I was involved with digital storytelling, I’ve been a fan of BBC Video Nation. I first became aware of it when I saw an job ad in the early 1990s announcing that the BBC Community Programmes Unit was recruiting people to develop uses for the Hi8 analogue camcorders that had heralded the introduction of near-broadcast-quality consumer video cameras. The fruits of that project, founded by Mandy Rose and Chris Mohr, were five to ten-minute video shorts scheduled before Newsnight on BBC 2 TV. Last night I went to London’s ICA Cinema for the final screening of Video Nation Network’s Turn Back Time…
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The personal, social and environmental impacts of technology and media
I mentioned Jason Ohler’s new book ‘Digital Community, Digital Citizen‘ last year. Jason’s just emailed me, saying: “I thought you might be interested in my article about digital citizenship and character education, in the new issue of Educational Leadership. It echoes a number of points from my book” The article’s called Teaching Screenagers – Character Education for the Digital Age . One of the challenges Jason sets out is tantalising: “Imagine how differently a school district might behave with the following goal in place: Students will study the personal, social, and environmental impacts of every technology and media application they use in school.” I quite like the converging-lives approach of teaching…
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Tokyo: New Horizons of Digital Storytelling
Mell Expo 2011 in Tokyo on the weekend of 19 & 20 March 2011.
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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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Digital stories in the Kwak’wala language
Only 270 people can speak Kwak’wala (source) so it’s highly endangered. Digital storytelling has a vital role in keeping a record of languages as they’re spoken today. The Mayatlan’s Wila Culture and Language Group for their Kwak’wala Digital Language Project has won Canadian Government funding to create 20 digital stories in the Kwak’wala language that will reflect daily activities, such as family meal times and home routines, as well as traditional events like food gathering… Capturing a language in this way in itself is not enough; digital storytelling needs to be just one piece of the jigsaw pieces that make a language relevant and vibrant. I do wish the speakers…
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Digital storytelling in the cloud
The ideal solution for a touring digital storytelling project, using existing, available digilabs at community centres, libraries, schools, colleges, etc. would seem to be to use web-based editing applications. This would remove the need to install individual programs or to have carrier bags full of training handouts for different combinations of pre-installed software. I’ve been discussing this recently with Umbrian home movies specialist Simona Bonini Baldini, who’s just returned home to Italy after spending the summer with us at the BBC here in Wales. Simona too liked the idea of editing in the cloud. One of her must-haves though was the ability to help digital storytellers to make broadcast-quality videos.…
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News of three BBC media literacy projects
I’ve just been reading an info pack from BBC Learning Campaigns and these three items on the slate caught my eye: 1. My Story Fifteen of the thousands of stories submitted will be showcased as five half-hour programmes, starting 7th Sept, 10.35pm, BBC One. www.bbc.co.uk/mystory 2. CBBC Me and My Movie This fourth year, Me and My Movie – the film-making initiative from CBBC and Learning – is teaming up with Tate, Aardman, Fallon, BAFTA and Film Education to deliver the Tate Movie Project, an ambitious Legacy Trust initiative. Children aged 5-13 will supply the drawings, storylines, characters and everything else needed to create an animated video. BBC Learning will…
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Digital storytelling on the high street
Wouldn’t it be great if you could pop in to get some expert help and make your own digital story while shopping in town? Well, during August 2010, if you’re lucky enough to live in Newcastle in the north-east of England, you can. Culture Shop is Culture Shock‘s empty shop arts project which not only screens digital stories but also offers expert facilitation for people who’d like to make their own digital story. Some take their own photos to tell their story; others choose from a range of artifacts from museums and galleries of the North East England. I visited Culture Shop while we were visiting my wife’s friend Grainee…
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wearecardiff
Interesting new multi-format digital storytelling about ‘place’ project – and it’s here in Cardiff. I’m looking forward to finding out more: The background is in this WalesOnline news report. The organisers (including Helia Phoenix, Roath) have already staged an empty shop project in town: via Google news alerts