DIGITAL STORYTELLING EVENT: Welcome to the Digital Storytelling Online Event! Introduce Yourself!

Hi everyone and welcome to the Digital Storytelling Online Event! We are very excited to have such a great panel of experts in the Digital Storytelling arena who will be hosting the forums discussions and webinar. We'd like to know who you are too, so please introduce yourself on this thread.

For those of you new to the forums, I'm Megan Keane, the Online Community Manager here at TechSoup. I am really new to using video tools, but I've been pleasantly surprised so far how easy it is for people that are not technically inclined (read: me) to use, so I hope a lot of you will roll up your sleeves and take part in the challenge. You can see event information on the event  page, as well as sign up to get email announcements about the event.

Hi, this is Andre Blackman and I am very passionate about the intersection of new media, innovation and public health.

I write about these sorts of things on my blog Pulse + Signal - which aims to highlight and promote individuals, projects and organizations in public health who are making use of creative ideas and innovative initiatives to better the health of the masses.

Digital storytelling is something I am VERY interested in, especially since I recently got my Flip video camera and have been doing video interviews for the site. I really feel as though digital storytelling can be hugely useful in the public health 2.0 world, allowing people to get a visual representation of health related issues going on around the world.

Can't wait to connect with likeminded individuals and learn more about video myself, really hooked on it!

Thanks,

Andre

Hi, I'm Rob from GoldMail 

we're passionate about helping people quickly and easily create digital stories, (in the form of audio slideshows) that can really touch and inspire.   

If you missed the outline of GoldMail in today's webinar, then you can click here to watch the GoldMail story that I created. or others on the GoldMail Gallery

I'll be helping to host the forums next week, but will be checking in most of the time during this event.

looking forward to seeing some great entries in the challenge

cheers

Rob

Hello All!

I'm the Training & Outreach Manager at TechSoup and helped to produce the two webinars that happened earlier today. If you didn't have a chance to participate, the recordings are now available. There were a ton of great ideas and resources shared.

Tools for Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling Expert Roundtable

Our talented presenters will be monitoring this forum, so please post additional questions here!

Hello all, Randal Moss here from TWMDC.  I enjoyed presenting  my slide deck on creating cohesive stories in digital settings and hope that I can answer questions on the methodology I used, or how we were able to bring together such a large diverse population for a single purpose and maintain focus and harmony.

Fell free to contact me here or via e-mail!

Randal

Greetings

I am glad to hear that you are so passionate about Health Education and the practical application of Social Media to make a positive impact on peoples' health.

I am working on a E Health project which will stress E Health, Mobile Health and Integrated WorkPlace Productivity Tools using a Touch screen netbook.

The computer is Ink-Media   http://www.ink-media.com and the model is called the OLEO.  One of our projects is in Bologne, Italy called the OLDES  Project which is designed to help older citizens stay in their homes vs institutions but use technology to provide health information and interact with them.

I would like to hear more about your projects

Thanks

Glenn McKnight

Oshawa, Ontario Canada

Glenn,
I am engaged in a project with the AIDS research Alliance creating a clinical trials portal with them, and am about to begin a project with Cancer Research UK on increasing their donation base of sustaining givers. Some of the details are confidential but I can assure you they cutting edge and meaningful! Your project sounds very neat - interesting challenges with the elderly population. If you can share more please do!

Best regards,
Randal

Moss.randal@gmail.com

Hey all,

My name is Basho and I am the program manager for the Flip for Good program - Flip Video's outreach to nonprofit, charitable and educational organizations.  It was great to present at the webinar last week and I'm always happy to share experience, and learn new things, from nonprofits using video in the field.  Our goal at Flip for Good is to make sure that nonprofits get the highest quality and simplest to use product at the lowest possible price.  We also work to support you all to create excellent stories and online campaigns using video.  Definitely check out the website at www.flipvideospotlight.com and if you are part of a nonprofit or educational organization that has not yet signed up to be a part of the program, be sure to fill out an application right away. 

Hi All, I'm Sharon Crost and I'm working with the Amador-Tuolumne Community Action Agency, which manages community programs in the Central Sierra region of California.  A big THANK YOU to TechSoup for the digital storytelling event and to all the experts who have shared their great ideas!  One of the programs we manage is helping bring our community to broadband and emerging technologies. Since we are a rural community without abundant access to high-speed internet, many of our community members do not yet have the ability to use/adopt emerging technologies.  I am hoping to use the digital storytelling challenge to rally folks into the value of digital stories and the (relative) ease of using this medium.  

Though I am not sure that we will be able to pull off a video in 2 weeks to meet the challenge deadline (I look forward to sharing the challenges or eventual successes in the forum), the digital storytelling event has sparked us to action!  This in itself is a #tsdigs success!

Saw your announcement over on Flickr and decided to enter a Five picture story there. My son and I do technical support for a local bird rehabilitator, who is conveniently on my evening walk. As a result I get a number of pictures of her temporary residents. To share pictures with the rehabilitator, I've been using flickr and a group associated with the Shelter. I've enjoyed the community at Flickr and often enjoy the pieces in tell a story in five pictures Group. Lovely contest and thanks for the ideas.

Hi Sharon, welcome and I'm so glad that the digital storytelling event has been helpful for you. It's a good reminder for me here in SF which is very urban with abundant tech that high-speed internet access is not widespread in many areas.

I really want to encourage you to submit to the challenge--what's so exciting about many of these storytelling tools is how accessible/inexpensive they are--YouTube really seems to have sparked the "citizen videographer" so to speak. I'm really new to using video myself but I helped create some short videos for a nonprofit I volunteer with and I think all of us were pleasantly surprised at how much easier it was then expected once we got the hang of it.

Wishing you luck on your video challenge--I know your org can do it--and please don't hesitate to post any questions you have as you go about it.

Best,

Megan

Andre, nice to see a fellow Tweeter here! Gus, great meeting you--loved checking out your challenge submission!

Glenn, a pleasure to have you as well after we connected on Skype.

One of the things that's been so interesting about having this event on multiple platforms is hearing about how folks heard about it and bringing out different community channels together.

Best,

Megan

Hi all,

My name is Jen Gilomen and I'm Director of Public Media Strategies at the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC).  My background is in community media, particularly social issue documentary and digital storytelling.  I have worked with several nonprofit organizations to get them started producing stories for many purposes. My latest endeavor is BAVC taking over public access television operations in San Francisco.  Wherever you are, you probably have a public access station, and I strongly encourage nonprofits to check out what resources, training, and local distribution options are available for nonprofits at your station.

Wanted to point you all to a few resources.  BAVC's web site (http://bavc.org > next gen > curriculum, or make media > community storytelling) contains many digital stories and all of the curriculum we use for our next generation programs -- curriculum you can use when trying to navigate basic media skills, tools, and software.  We worked pretty hard on documenting it all and putting it online so other folks could use it for free.

Looking forward to seeing everyone's stories!

Jen

Hi, we built a replica of the first European ship built in America, the Onrust, built in 1614 near Manhattan.  It is being used as a floating museum and classroom to teach young people and adults about the important Dutch contributions to American society (like tolerance, pluralism, right to petition the court, etc.).  You can view the whole project on our web site at www.theonrust.com

I uploaded pix for the contest on flicker but not sure if I did it right??

don

Hi Don--

Thanks for submitting! And don't worry, you submitted just right. I'd never heard of the Onrust before, so it was great to check out your story and learn more about the project on your site. Hope to see you more around the forums and the event.

Best,

Megan