How can one child’s idea change a country? Here’s an example. The 100,000th tree has been planted in time for National Tree Week. That’s one for every child born or adopted in Wales. Here’s how it happened: “The original idea for the scheme came from a Cardiff schoolgirl, Natalie Vaughan, 11 who wrote to her Assembly Member, Sue Essex, suggesting that planting a tree for every child born or adopted would be a good way to make young people think about their environment and the role they have in preserving it. The Welsh Assembly Government decided to run with the idea and it is now being delivered on their behalf…
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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 stories containing home movies
Here are some links to digital stories shown on the BBC website which contain home movies, archive film and especially-shot video – i.e. not just stills To Know Someone by Canadian student Nicole Lavergne Smith mixes home movie footage of her grandmother as a young woman with Nicole’s story of her grandmother’s dementia today. Another effective, albeit brief, use of home movie in a digital story by Gill Jones from the Breaking Barriers project. This Rhondda Lives! story by Les Rees is remarkable for its use of 1926 carnival archive footage from the National Library of Wales. Les was actually at this carnival and remembers it well. Here’s a seldom-screened…
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Jason Ohler’s new book
The author of the classic ‘Digital Storytelling in the Classroom’ has finished writing his latest book. On 31st October 2010, Corwin Press will publish Digital Community, Digital Citizen by Jason Ohler: “It looks at the rise of digital communities, the evolution of citizenship (local, global and digital), the complications (and opportunities) arising from kids communicating in cyberspace and how education can help prepare students for a world that will need them to use technology effectively, creatively and wisely. Topics addressed: character education for digital kids, how school boards need to respond to everything from sexting to cyberbullying, how to help teachers and students ‘see’ the technology that has become invisible…
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Use social media to drive social change: The Dragonfly Effect
This looks like an interesting book: ‘The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change’ by Jennifer Aaker & Andy Smith “A handbook on using the power and popularity of social media to do good in the world. The Dragonfly Effect because of that insect’s ability to move in any direction when its four wings work together. This is a comprehensive guide for how to take your cause and compassion viral: an e-mail campaign to register bone marrow donors for hard-to-match patients a Colombian engineer who used Facebook to organize a protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces the microlending site Kiva” (edited from…
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Animating StoryCorps interview
“The things we all share are pretty much the things that bring us together”. That’s how Jamillah Knowles began her piece about StoryCorps. I was listening to the BBC Outriders technology podcast this week and really enjoyed the StoryCorps interview. The programme’s presenter Jamillah talked with Mike Rauch, who’s making animations of some of these audio stories. I don’t know whether or not this podcast is downloadable outside the UK, but here’s a link to the 12 MB mp3 file of this episode. The story by Danny and Annie at the start of the sequence was really moving, especially when I heard that Danny had passed away since recording his…
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See how trees could improve your local area with a new tool that helps get them planted.
The Woodland Trust has launched a new civic campaigning tool called MyView that will be of interest if you feel your neighborhood could benefit from having some trees planted there. Step 1 take a photo of an area near you which you feel would benefit from some trees Step 2 upload it to the site and drap-and-drop some virtual trees to the view to make it look nicer. Caption your work by maybe adding a story about why this is a place that’s special to you. Personal stories are a powerful tool in getting things implemented, as we learn from Patients’ Voices’ health-related stories. Step 3 send a link to…
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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…
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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…