• citizenship,  digital storytelling,  empowerment,  inclusion,  people,  story,  Wales

    Digital Stories may be ideal for Welsh TV channel S4C

    This sounds like an interesting opportunity for someone who wants to pitch an idea for a series of Welsh-language digital stories to S4C. It’s from the Content section of S4C’s Vision for 2012 and Beyond (PDF). “We will establish a new brand, Calon Cenedl (heart of the nation), a series of short programmes approximately three-minutes long to be broadcast at 20.25. The content will offer us the opportunity to exhibit the full range of Welsh life in a series of portrayals about areas, communities and people. This new brand can be extended to include half-hour programmes at other times during peak hours when the editorial strength of the idea merits…

  • digital storytelling,  education,  empowerment,  inclusion,  story,  technology

    Rami Malkawi needs people to make a digital story with his new prototype

    Rami Malkawi is a Jordanian University of Glamorgan PhD researcher and he needs our help to try out his new wizard-based digital storytelling prototype for learning. The tool works on most computers that can have Adobe Air and Flash installed and is a step-by-step digital storytelling ‘machine’. The 30MB executable file is available from this SpeedyShare link or by clicking the link at the bottom of the first post of Rami’s blog. The tool’s wizard guides users through the Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling in a user-friendly way. Camtasia screen-capture software has been used to publish additional video tutorials on the blog. These guide users through the steps needed to…

  • digital storytelling,  education,  empowerment,  inclusion,  media literacy,  museums,  story

    Culture Shock! museums and galleries digital storytelling conference 29 Sept 2011

    It’s always a treat to hear about a brand new digital storytelling conference. And here’s some news of a new one one this autumn in the north-east of England. Culture Shock! is one of the biggest digital storytelling projects in the world. At the time of writing they’ve published 560 stories on their website and they’re holding a major conference at Live Theatre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on Thursday 29 September 2011 – Culture Shock! 2011. The conference programme looks really interesting: Alex Henry, project co-ordinator at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, talks about the Culture Shock! project itself; Barrie Stephenson of Digistories answers the question ‘What is digital storytelling?’; and there…

  • digital storytelling,  education,  people,  story

    Cheryl Colan – Trust Your Story

    It’s thanks to Twitter that I met Cheryl Colan. I’d been following her tweets about #digitalstorytelling for a couple of years via @cherylcolan When I heard she was coming to teach digital storytelling in the UK with Study Abroad Britain, I invited her to Cardiff. I was impressed by Cheryl’s commitment to and love of digital stories. Here’s an audio clip of Cheryl describing a digital storytelling trip to Australia and New Zealand: Cheryl Colan (mp3) I recorded more audio with Cheryl. In the future, I’ll share a clip of Cheryl’s philosophy regarding seeking storytellers’ consents. I like her approach because it’s a beautifully nuanced one. Cheryl often travels with…

  • digital storytelling,  education,  empowerment,  inclusion,  story,  technology

    Digital Storytellers from Italy and Jordan in Wales

    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…

  • 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…

  • digital storytelling,  education,  empowerment,  instruction,  story,  timeless,  tips

    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,…

  • digital storytelling,  education,  inclusion,  media literacy,  story,  Wales

    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

  • citizenship,  digital storytelling,  empowerment,  inclusion,  links,  mobile,  timeless

    From Truprint to Facebook

    Up until the 1990s, passing round a Truprint envelope full of 6″ x 4″ photographic prints was the norm; nowadays we publish our own online and ‘Like’ our friends’ photos on Facebook. Increasingly, that’s how we pass round our snapshots. This is a great moment to capture that change in the way we share our personal photos. “From Snapshots to Social Media – The Changing Picture of Domestic Photography” is a new book by Risto Sarvas and David Frohlich from University of Surrey. David has a fascinating history in Digital Storytelling as the pioneer of Audio Photography and one of the people behind the StoryBank digital storytelling sharing project in…