Writing Circle Activity

Last Wednesday I and two other people from my group (Coretta and Hannah) participated in a writing circle activity as part of Dr. Robin's Digital Storytelling class. The exercise was insightful, fun and useful.

The group was given 15 minutes to write a story about a moment in time when they were forced (had) to make a decision that would change their life. I spoke of the time I chose to move to Austin for a job that would change the course of my career. Hannah chose to write about her decision to go to U of H and how it has changed her life and career. And Coretta wrote of her journey to self fulfillment and a career doing something she loves. By the end of the exercise, having discussed each participant's story with the assigned group, we had found common themes, discuss a little of how to make the story better (though probably not as much as we should have) and in my opinion gotten to know each other a little bit better and enjoyed ourselves in the process.

The exercise itself showed us how easy it was to pour out at least a rough draft of a story. We all agreed that it was easier to write about something we knew, as well as something near to our hearts and experience. Dr. Robin checked in on us and we discussed the difference between the exercise topic and working on our final project. I came away with a better understanding of what lies ahead in creating the text for my final project and hopefully understanding the creative process a little better.

Finally, the writing circle was without a doubt something that anyone working on a story could use. In practice, as an educator, I could see using this at the beginning of the digital storytelling course as an icebreaker amongst students. The student is not expected to spill their heart out about a sensitive topic, but to speak about something that brings pride to them. Another possibility would be to use the writing circle at the beginning of every class to - maybe a five minute exercise - to allow the students a creative moment to either build on lessons learned from the last class or areas of their final story where they would like feedback. Actually there are so many options for when and how to use this type of exercise.

Mid Term Project - Guillotine

After listening to several of the Engines episodes, I have finally selected my mid term project topic - No. 1448: GUILLOTIN/GUILLOTINE. The story is perfect for the Halloween time and the narration seems to provide room for interesting images and historical reference.

Start of the Final Project

This "digital story" is the start of my final project. Included within the video are images that I think may be useful to my project on Propaganda in the News. I've also included two different songs. I will work more at collecting more images and editing the music within the coming weeks.

The recorded audio - narration - is better in this attempt. I purchased a USB mic and for more than the lowest price thinking it would mean better quality but I'm not sold. I'm going to play with it more and see if it has to do with settings, OS, etc.

The Godfather - with music and narration

This is a revamped version of The Godfather with both music and narration. It's cheesier than a Philly Cheesesteak but it was what I had to do for my country, my family...and my class. Or something like that.
The narration was very difficult. I can see where storyboarding comes in handy because it is hard to think about what you want or need to say without having scripted it. Additionally, the intermingling of narration to music. I didn't play around too much with the music other than volume because I'm not really sure what would go well other than what I have throughout the digital story.
Enjoy - it's sugary sweet so maybe drink coffee or a beer with it (if you're of legal age).

The Godfather

This is my first attempt at making a digital story and publishing it to my own blog.

My First Digital Story

Here is the link digital story -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbXS0bcgssQ

Couple of things I ran into -

1. It was almost easier just to upload my movie to YouTube vs. doing it in Picasa3. It's only my opinion but even with a Google account I had to link it to YouTube (where I didn't have an account) before I could move forward plus I had the added step of pulling the material into Picasa3. I do see the benefit though in having all of your work in one place and that is one of the many things that Picasa3 is great at providing.

2. I ran into the fact that I had to get consent. Something I hadn't really thought about. After completing the piece I realized that I needed to ask for permission for two reasons a) a child is involved and that might pose a risk, and b) the subject is an "alternative" family, who might not necessarily be comfortable with having their story in cyberspace.

So I've covered all bases. It moves rather fast because it's a little long and I wanted to cut the viewing time for the sake of class.

Thanks.

Steve