One last digital storytelling project I came across is the Native Youth Enrichment Program.   In this youth program, youth created digital powerful stories that share their experiences.  The four day workshops as run by the Center for Digital Storytelling.  Click to view stories

This powerful digital storytelling project provided a voice for First Nations women who were personally impacted by residential schools. Prairie Women’s Health Centre for Excellence posted and shared six digital stories, created by professional First Nations women whose mothers survived residential schools.  The theme of the project is understanding the legacy that residential schools pass on between generations.  The filmmakers: Lorena Fontaine, Lisa Forbes, Wendy McNab, Claudette Michell, Lisa Murdock, and Roberta Stout, share profound stories of their mothers that centre around hope, resilience, and healing.

The site provides the following description of digital stories:

A “digital story” is a 2-5 minute video. It is a personal narrative coupled with a collection of still images, video, and music which illustrates an individual’s story. Indigenous peoples’ stories are intellectual traditions that can disrupt colonial narratives of history, recognize injustice, celebrate resistance, and envision the future. Researchers and communities are increasingly recognizing the healing properties of visual and narrative approaches; thus this project both generated information about the experiences of women whose mothers attended residential schools and served a therapeutic purpose. Digital media can make these concerns more visible to the world and exchange knowledges and sensibilities that support self-representation and self-determination.

Weblog 4.3

The Digital Songlines (DSL) project was a digital storytelling project, using a 3D gaming engine. The project  funded by the Australasian Cooperative Research centre for Interaction Design. Unfortunately funding ceased some time after 2007 and it was difficult to find other projects.

Leavy et al (2007) in their article Evaluating the Digital Songlines Game Engine for Australian Indigenous storytelling outline the project. The aim was to use quality gaming to allow users to experience Indigenous virtual heritage in high fidelity simulation with culturally appropriate tools. They describe the importance of Aboriginal collaboration through each project and outline a protocol to address IP and copyright issues that is entirely community focused and driven. The depiction of ‘country’ in each project was not just a backdrop for the game but was the largest ‘artefact’. ‘Country’ is both a receptacle and it actively participates in the telling of the story. (p.164)

The feedback about the game varied with age of participants. The younger participants used to commercial games were either disappointed that it wasn’t the same, or delighted because it was! Older participants appreciated the language, tradition and stories being ‘brought to life’.

Users and developers saw it as a way technology can assist in the empowering of cultural identity.

YouTube example of a Digital songline project

Storytelling and Web 2.0 Services: 
A Synthesis of Old and New Ways of Learning

Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
University of Houston

Digital Storytelling
Tools for Educators

Digital Storytelling
Tips and Resources

Web 2.0 Tools to Support Digital Storytelling
27th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning

Web 2.0 Storytelling:
Emergence of a New Genre

Web 2.0 Storytelling: Introduction
NITLE Workshops – Bryan Alexander

Web 2.0 Tools for Storytelling
Central York School District

Storytelling and Audio
Public History and Web 2.0 – Mapping the Past in the Future

Digital Storytelling in the Classroom
Microsoft in Education Teaching Guides

Site #4

Vancouver Island University along with Coast Salish community groups are implementing a digital storytelling project . It  is advertised as a way to revitalize the native language of the Hul’q’umi’num; people from southeastern Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and the lower Fraser River.  They will have native elders tell traditional stories in their own language and offer the opportunity to ask questions about the values and the meanings of the stories. This is a new project and is being implemented and driven by input from indigenous community. The completed project will be available in a wide variety of technologies for any educational group.