"building the capacity of public media and technology organizations"
Are you ready? I'm leading my first web conference presentation tomorrow afternoon to spread my digital storytelling love on the Neighborhood Networks Quarterly Consortia Conference Call. I met some of these folks back in June at the Digital Storytelling Bootcamp at the (HUD) Neighborhood Networks Regional Technical Assistance Workshops. Check out the Powerpoint if you like.
Well it's been a little while so it's time for an update. I can't believe that it's almost Halloween...time flies.
So I'm loving life in Berkeley at Center for Digital Storytelling. I'm finally feeling more like I'm a part of things here...I've got an email address, business cards, and they even put me on the website. Yay! I'm also getting deep into projects, which feels good.
I've been helping lead our digital storytelling workshops and then doing postproduction work on the stories produced. It's really awesome work because basically once or twice a month I get to sit down with a group of people, listen to them tell their stories, and then help them carry out their vision of how to present the story as a digital media project. The whole workshop process is amazing...I think it's rare when people sit down to really listen to each other. Beyond just opening up and sharing stories, there's the creative aspect of planning how best to present your story and then using these really cool tools to bring the story to life with images and music. I'm still really drawn in to the magic of it. Three cheers for participatory media!
Ah, I got a bit of a break, but the conference fall season has begun. I presented at the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC) Convention on how to use digital storytelling as a community organizing tool. Here's the Powerpoint, the handout and worksheet.
As a little plug that collaborations and resources sharing is acutally possible among CTC VISTAs, I thought I'd post up something cool that happened last year.
Morgan Sully, developed an open DIY Digital Media Toolkit/CD-ROM, with a simple HTML start page and links to resources and free software (usually distributed on CD) to bring to sessions he did in his work with The San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Community Center.
I was excited to attend a bit of the Project Hope open house yesterday (the Mayor was even there!), at their new community building on Dudley Street. It's the first "green" building in Roxbury and a vastly different space than their building on Magnolia St (which is a former residence of nuns), where they crowded both their residential and education programs into one building. Here's the blurb from their press release on the new building:
Digital storytelling originates in Berkeley, California at the Center for Digital Storytelling (http://www.storycenter.org). Influenced by popular education, third world cinema, and the community documentary movement, digital storytelling values the power of story as a tool for self-discovery and reflection, community building and education, organizing, and advocacy. These workshops guide participants through a process combining storytelling with modern-day technology and digital media. All participants create a three to four minute video through an intensive workshop format. Digital stories are based on participants’ own experiences and told through their own perspectives. Participants’ voices are recorded and integrated with photographs, letters, home videos, and other artifacts. These pieces can be viewed on DVD, VHS, CD, or uploaded to the web. [from Creative Narrations / massIMPACT Spreading the Stories curriculum].
Inspired by the cool Dynebolic.org CD, CTC VISTA Morgan Sully (SDTC / Digital Media Project) created a DIY Digital Media Toolkit/CD-ROM. This cross-platform CD includes a small collection of free creative tools/software for users to manipulate images, record sound and upload/share their media. Morgan notes the tools can be used on their own or with the tutorial and resource links, including iMovie and Windows Movie Maker (for assembling projects). In this web-based version of Morgan's toolkit you cannot install the software but he provided helpful links below.
Comment from Morgan Sully on June 20, 2007 - 11:49am
I'm currently developing an updated version of this which I'll put in the wiki and also notify people of...
Comment from lauren bratslavsky on October 19, 2006 - 3:26pm
Hey thanks for that pdf with the list of resources and so on. I've been talking to a local writing group that's a couple of streets of way. We want to do a joint project with the area youth where they (Inktank) will work on the writing and story development side and they we (media bridges) will work on the digital media side. This will help us get going.