Digital Arts Service Corps - digitalstorytelling

Live D Web Conference - Neighborhood Networks 12/05

danielle martin — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 19:15:17 +0000

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.

I'm excited to try this new form of presenting and see if we can get more NN members excited about doing digital storytelling at their centers. We're using WebEx so I'll let y'all know how it goes and if my efficacious humor conveys over web presentation software and teleconference call.

Plans are still in the works for more Spreading the Stories train-the-trainer workshops next year, hopefully out in western MA and something local in Boston, perhaps with Latino groups or youth.

My big project over the past couple weeks is managing the StoriesForChange.net website development and looking for not only the right approach but also the best technology (and/or CMS) with a group of great volunteers and facilitators. I've got a bunch of thoughts now about approaches to building social networking and/or file sharing sites with nonprofits, but I'll blog about that later.

Oh did I mention we're pulling together a MassIMPACT strategic planning and board meeting for next week? MassIMPACT's board hasn't met in quite a while and the board members I've met with individually all have interesting ideas about where the organization should go in the future.

I love my job! (er...position)

Jessica McCoy — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 22:01:41 +0000

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!

One of the coolest things about my work here is seeing how digital stories can be used for social change. We do a lot of work with community based organizations, training them to be able to use digital stories in their work to address issues in their own communities. I think it's great to see this stuff put to work instead of just looking at it as a jazzy way to preserve personal memories.

Okay, well this post is getting lengthy. I could gush about this forever but I'll stop. I promise to post some really links/questions/helpful info sometime soon!

Digital Storytelling Workshop at MACDC

danielle martin — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:21:11 +0000

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.

The session went well (I love how easy it is to present using my new MacBook) and people asked all the right questions about usability & practicality of using digital storytelling in a community setting. They also seemed psyched about all the new open media tools and sites and how to use stories to do advocacy for their CDC's. I also had some great interactions with some folks from New Bedford and western MA including a former VISTA who are lacking media outlets and access to broadband internet connections, but still want to distribute audio/video about their community work. Hey Apple, want to donate some video iPods to western MA CDCs to distribute digital stories? Call me!

Below are a few photos of the event.

All my other conference presentations on digital storytelling (some great finished stories) from last year are on my old blog.

Check out the East Somerville Community Map!

CTC VISTAs Can Share! - Digital Media Toolkit

danielle martin — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:02:32 +0000

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.

He put it up on his blog and posted it to the Digital Media discussion list (and Nettrice posted it to the old portal), and opened it up for folks to take and customize for their own work.

In response, Roxanne Johnson, built upon it and compiled her own toolkit to train her AmeriCorps volunteers and youth at the Twin Cities C-CAN/CTEP Project in MN.

Cool, huh?

Project Hope's Open House

danielle martin — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 14:38:45 +0000

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:

"The building, constructed with recycled materials and designed to be "earth-friendly" through its use of low-energy elevators and natural light, is fully equipped with two state-of-the-art computer centers, a spacious community room with a projection screen, a number of sizeable classrooms and administrative offices with outstanding views of Boston's skyline. The new building stands as a symbol of hope for all clients that step through the glass doors and into the polished, professional lobby of Project Hope's headquarters."

I met Char, a teacher at Project Hope, at a digital storytelling session I did at Umass Boston and she instantly got SO excited about the possibilities of bringing digital storytelling into their curriculum for adult literacy for low-income women. She ended up recruiting Natasha Freidus from Creative Narrations to run a workshop with her teachers over the summer, and they created a story together about how they created a beautiful space for learning and sharing at the old building and their hopes to recreate it at the new building. (I'm still nagging Char to get a copy of the finished story online...stay tuned.)

Now that the great folks at Project Hope have this lovely new Community Resource Lab in addition to a new lab upstairs for the literacy classes. I'm excited because now Char can incorporate more technology and digital storytelling into her curriculum.

On a personal note, I was highly amused by the intricate catering...even though I had to leave before I got to eat any of it...

Digital Storytelling

danielle martin — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 20:58:34 +0000

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].

Why Use Stories for Community Building and/or Organizing?

Stories can gather knowledge and coax out leadership
Stories connect individuals based on common experiences
Stories can create the conditions for change
Storytelling fosters participation, dialogue, and voice

CTC VISTAs have used digital storytelling in various ways in their work. Morgan Sully, developed an open source toolkit on CD to bring to sessions he did at The San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Community Center. Roxanne Johnson, at, built upon this toolkit to train her AmeriCorps volunteers and youth at the Twin Cities C-CAN/CTEP Project in MN. Former VISTA Dean Gransar and current VISTAs Kevin Palmer and AJ McGuire at HOME Inc are using digital storytelling to teach media literacy in schools. Danielle Martin (massIMPACT) and Jessica McCoy (CDS) are currently developing an online resource for community digital storytelling facilitators at StoriesForChange.net.

Here's an example of a story, made by a teen at the BGCB Cyber Summit in Spring 2006.

Vanessa (age 15) was a representative from the Roxbury Boys & Girls Club at the 2006 BGCB Cyber Summit in April. This is her digital story about misrepresentation of her neighborhood in the local media.

Do-It-Yourself Digital Media Toolkit

Morgan Sully — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 18:13:49 +0000

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.

Instructions for Creating the Digital Media Toolkit
1) Create a new folder on your Desktop called 'Digital Media Toolkit'.
2) Put the 'OPEN ME FIRST' HTML (included with this email) into it.
3) Within that folder, create 2 new folders. One entitled 'PC' and
another entitled 'Mac OS'.
4) Download both Mac and PC versions of any of the software (both zipped using WinZip) and put them in these respective folders.

The software you will need can be found at:
http://www.nvu.com
http://www.picasa.com
http://gimp.org/
http://ascgen.jmsoftware.co.uk/
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
http://creativecommons.org/tools/ccpublisher
http://www.flickr.com

Note that you can freely 'remix' the 'OPEN ME FIRST' file for your own programs!