• citizenship,  conference,  digital storytelling,  inclusion,  media literacy,  museums,  story,  Wales

    Telling Truths, Changing Minds – digital storytelling evening

    As a round-up of digital storytelling activities in south Wales, it’s hard to beat this event TELLING TRUTHS, CHANGING MINDS in Cardiff, Wales, on Thursday, 29 November 2012. It’s been organised by the CommsCymru network for communications professionals in Wales and it’s open to all members of that CommsCymru network (joining details below). The event is all about the ‘practice and tactics for making effective comms narratives plus the latest applied research from experts at our national centre for storytelling’. The programme is impressive: Professor Hamish Fyfe of the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling at the University of Glamorgan will be hosting the evening. Lisa Heledd-Jones of StoryWorks will…

  • capturing assets,  digital storytelling,  education,  instruction,  museums,  people,  story,  timeless,  tips

    Digital storytelling admin

    I’ve just been speaking on Facebook with south Wales digital storytelling and community video practitioner Sandra Anstiss. She’s venturing into the private sector making stories with owners, marketing staff, customers, etc. and she was asking members of the Facebook DS Working Group for advice about consents and copyright. I’d say there are three or more issues here… 1. The stated consent of the storyteller and featured subjects; 2. Some form of evidence that any third-party assets are OK to use (other people’s pics, music, etc.); and 3. Something that says who owns the finished digital story entity. Once these are established, it becomes possible to license the story’s re-publication elsewhere,…

  • digital storytelling,  museums,  technology,  Wales

    Displaying digital stories

    If you’re looking for ways of displaying your project’s digital stories, here are two examples to consider. I’m working for the BBC at Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru in Wrexham this week and in the BBC Cymru Wales ‘cube’ tent on the maes (Eisteddfod field) there are two video displays that may be of interest to digital storytellers. . 1. Casgliad y Werin – The People’s Collection – a kiosk showing videos and artefacts. 2. Clip Cymru touchscreen for viewing video clips. This uses touch technology developed for explaining ongoing Election results.

  • 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…

  • 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,  inclusion,  media literacy,  museums

    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…

  • digital storytelling,  museums,  story,  Wales

    The Cardiff Story digital stories

    I went to the screening last night at the Atrium in Cardiff of 13 new digital stories, made to be exhibited at The Cardiff Story – a museum about the city which opens in autumn 2010. The stories were broadly all on the theme of the views about Cardiff of people living in the Valleys of south Wales. They’re a collaboration between The Cardiff Story, University of Glamorgan’s George Ewart Evans Centre of Storytelling, Cardiff Council and the AHRC. Only 13 of the stories were screened last night but they’ll all be exhibited at the Cardiff Story later in 2010, and on their website. What’s remarkable about this is that…

  • digital storytelling,  museums

    Home movies meet digital stories

    Do you know of examples of media forms that mix home movies with digital storytelling to add a personal-viewpoint narration to a home movie? If you do, please can you add a link to the comments below? (Don’t worry about the error message when you send the comment; I seem to be picking up all the coments OK, This is one of the joys of my WordPress comments plugin). I’m asking the question because an Umbrian researcher called Simona Bonini Baldini is spending the summer based here at BBC Wales investigating the BBC Capture Wales model and seeing if this kind of digital storytelling method might be mixed with the…

  • digital storytelling,  DS Cymru,  education,  inclusion,  media literacy,  museums,  Wales

    DS5 digital storytelling conference cribsheet 2010

    This is my look back at DS5. It’s something I did after previous conferences DS4 (2009), DS3 (2008) and DS2 (2007) too.  Unfortunately, the record of DS1 is no longer online. At this year’s DS5, Diego Vidart – Historias Digitales del Uruguay (HDUY) – gave the opening speech of the day. Diego had worked with Breaking Barriers in Wales a few years ago and now he’s  now working at the Catholic University of Uruguay in Montevideo on a USB-based video capture and editing application that enables children to capture and edit a digital story. The One Laptop per Child (OX) initiative is up and running in Uruguay. Because the OX’s…

  • digital storytelling,  empowerment,  media literacy,  museums,  story,  technology,  Wales

    Telling your story in a taxi cab

    I’m working at the Urdd National Eisteddfod – a major European youth festival – in Aberaeron, Wales, this week. Colleagues from the BBC Welsh-language children’s news programme Ffeil have been recording viewers’ stories using an adapted London black taxi cab as an experiment here. It’s not something they’ve built themselves; it’s been hired in. The cab contains a video camera which starts recording onto a flashcard as soon as someone opens the door and sits in the cab. Question prompts can be given either on-screen or, in the case of Ffeil,  by a presenter off-camera.This taxi strikes me as a fleet-footed story capture device. The best way to use this would…