Registration is now open for Wales’s third annual Festival of Digital Storytelling at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Thursday 5th and Friday 6 June 2008. And – wearing my DS Cymru member hat – I’d like to invite you to come 🙂
Yes, DS3 has expanded to two days this year and, as it says on the website: “Whether you work in education, the community or as an artist, it is your opportunity to share experiences, explore new creative ideas, see the latest technological developments, look at examples of best practise in the U.K. and worldwide and celebrate the growing significance of Digital Storytelling”
I’m really looking forward to this year’s Festival, not least because the speakers who’ve agreed to take part are so good.
Jason Ohler, from Alaska, will be a familiar name to anyone who’s interested in Digital Storytelling in schools. He’ the author of ‘Digital Storytelling in the Classroom’. It should be interesting to see what the educationalists in the audience make of his evangelism for Digital Storytelling in the classroom, especially as Wales has the power to determine its own curriculum for schools. Might we see schools in Wales allocating sufficient resources and embedding the activity of Digital Storytelling in our classrooms in a revolutionary way? I personally hope so. Just imagine how that would impact on young Welsh people’s digital expression and storytelling skills and how much fun that would make school!
Gilly Adams is one of the most magnetic characters I’ve ever met. I sat in awe listening to her talk about how to help someone with their story as she addressed a group of 40 in Merthyr Tydfil in March. She was sharing decades of experience garnered from not only dozens of Digital Storytelling workshops but also her background in theatre, community radio plays and celebratory ritual performance. I guarantee that, if you want to learn something new about storytelling, you will if you come to listen to Gilly.
Two Digital Storytellers who have an historic connection with BBC Capture Wales are making the trip from Norway to Aberystwyth to share their experiences of setting up Digitale Fortellinger. Eli Lea and Hanne Jones set up their project with the aim of helping individuals to share their personal story on TV in Nordic countries. They’ve also done some interesting, pioneering work with museums. By the way, Hanne’s own Digital Story is one of my all-time favourites.
Pat Kane – half of Hue and Cry – wrote ‘The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a Different Way of Living’ which “proposes the ‘player’ as a new identity for a productive, creative and meaningful life”. He’s coming from Scotland to Aberystwyth.
Also speaking or holding workshops or breakout sessions are Breaking Barriers; Canllaw Online; Cardiff University; Coleg Sir Gar, Llanelli; Culturenet Cymru; DS Cymru; Huw Davies; Monmouthshire County Council; University of Glamorgan George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling; Yale College, Wrexham; etc. as well as BBC Cymru Wales.
Between the keynotes there are sessions about where to go to get money to fund your grassroots project from people who’ve been very succesful in doing just that, creating ‘a digital story in ten clicks’, being young and telling stories, pedagogy, sustainability, new forms and social software, best ways of facilitating stories, an open mic story session, building digital communities, etc
So it’s a fantastic line-up and I hope you can come. You’ll be most welcome.
2 Comments
edwin
This is great information – its encouraging to see online education is becoming more widely accepted and the benefits are backed up by a range of studies.
Jomar
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