Mog and I have been busy developing some new workshops this week. We’re very excited about getting out to deliver the new sessions which variously cover animation, social game-playing and adding information to pictures.
The animation workshop is a lovely desk-based session which stimulates digital inclusion and encourages storytelling through simple animation.

The gameplaying session mixes traditional physical games such as hide and seek with mobile phone technology to encourage digital inclusion and storytelling through social interactions.

The final workshop that we have developed is a modern twist on the traditional picture postcard; where workshop participants will learn how to add information to pictures in order to tell a more holistic story about the chosen image.
All our new workshops are flexible in length and can be tailored to the time available to work with the community group receiving the training. We will be running the animation workshop for the first time on September the 7th so we will be sure to write up how it went here on our blog!

Further information on the diverse range of workshops are available here: http://geecs.50webs.com/
All our work aims to encourage the development of community-based digital or IT skills in a fun and creative manner. Please feel free to contact either Mog or myself via the blog if you are part of a community group that feels our work could benefit you.

Hi, 

I thought I'd better write a quick post to introduced myself as the project's new Outreach Worker. 

I'm really pleased to be working on the Digital Storytelling project, and am excited about the work that Mogs and I will be undertaking over the next 18 months or so to help communities benefit from the diversity of technology that is available to us these days. It's a great role for me as I am a techno-enthusiast, so as well as helping to share my enthusiasm and burgeoning IT know-how with others, I'll get to develop new skills at the same time.

Over the past few days I've been working closely with Mogs learning the ropes - I hope it's not been too painful a process for him! As part of my 'learning by doing' regime I have made my first ever digital story. Had I realised it would be offered here for the world to see I might have chosen to focus a little less on dogs...!

I've also spent some time absorbing the project's background and structure and am looking forward to meeting the other field workers and project officers to further develop my understanding here. Now that I'm beginning to get up to speed with the way the project has been working, I'm keen to get out and about and run some training sessions and I'm also starting to share some ideas around how we can further develop the variety of training and services that we offer.

(image courtesy of Mei Lewis)

On the 28th July we were invited to a screening of some of the stories from the new Cardiff Story Museum opening in the Hayes in Cardiff in the Autumn. It's always great to go to a screening in a proper cinema and the Atrium provided a great setting.

There were lots of people there, many of whom had come along to see their own stories on the big screen.

The Cardiff Story is a living museum that explores people's relationships with the capital and so the ever hard working Mari has been all over collecting stories which are in turn funny, passionate, revealing and emotional.

GEECS have been involved in the project from the outset and Professor Fyfe's passion for the project was obvious through his introductory speech.

On a personal note, there was a story that really hit a chord with me and revolved around a man who worked on the last day of the last pit to be closed in the Rhondda. The story had a great deal of personal power in it's reflective tone which I'm sure could be echoed by any number of communities in Wales; the loss of industry and the subsequent social and economic implications were something that was happening around me as I was growing up and much more than a day off school because there was no coal to heat the boiler...

 

The Cardiff Story is opening in the Autumn and will provide facilities for visitors to search and link to the past as well as provide opportunities to watch and create their own stories that can be added to the collection - all in all a great resource and a fantastic way of utilising digital storytelling and personal narrative as a means to help people engage with and understand their history and heritage

We're very pleased at GEECS to welcome Angharad as the new outreach worker for the Communities 2.0 project.

Angharad started just Monday but is already hard at work producing her introductory digital story. We'll post it here on the front page as soon as it's ready.

We've already had a number of discussions about how we can take the project forward in terms of new and creative means of offering digital inclusion activities with a twist - pervasive gaming and it's application within social media is just one of an exciting range of workshops we'll be developing and offering over the coming weeks.

We've also been talking about how we can include geotagging and related technologies with a storytelling twist - always trying to make it relevant to the people that we're working with.

So hopefully you'll all be able to meet Angharad very soon and, let's be honest, it's a great change from my strange furry face!

In other news you can now find our calendar over on the resources page (HERE) where Angharad has already endured the agony of being turned into a "Wally"....

We hope the inclusion of our calendar will help everyone to easily see where we are, and as we've said, if we can do it we will - especially if it's just a quick hour taster session.

hello. test.

Indeed this was a month ago - so much for my on the spot social reporting eh?

Anyway, there was a post I did which was part of the breakout session we ran at DS5 where I generated a random scenario for people to write an SMS story about and then send them to the blog (thanks to Frankenstory for the inspiration). The results are on the right.

The festival itself was great and agin, now in it's 5th year, DS cymru continues to inspire. Here's some links to reports and pictures of the day:

The DS Cymru Ning network

Gareth Morlais' blog is a great DS resource in itself!

DigiStories are always doing great stuff, there's plenty of resources here, but I must personally thank Barrie for his kind words...

A great day was had by all and probably the highlight of the day for many was listening to Joe Lambert's keynote: