A New Classroom & Course for the New Year
Photo from The Hague’s Nationaal Archief
I’m excited to be embarking on a new educational adventure this year! My new classroom will be in the Broadcast Communication Program at BCIT and the Continuing Studies Department at Capilano University. At both schools I will be teaching Interactive Storytelling. Not completely sure, but I do think these are two of the first Interactive Storytelling Courses at Post Secondary Institutions in Canada.
So what is Interactive Storytelling?
I define Interactive Storytelling, as storytelling across platforms of media, some of which are interactive, allowing the audience to interact with the story itself, if they so choose.
For the purposes of these classes, whilst we will be looking at examples of other forms of interactivity, such as ARGs and Gaming, the focus of the class will be on using different forms of social media (such as blogs, twitter, facebook, blip.fm, flickr, podcasting..etc) to make traditional stories (such as novels, films, tv, articles, radio, plays, brands …etc) more interactive. Through the course of the class, the participants will use these social media tools to build an interactive component to a project of their own. This can be a project that they have developed in the past, are currently working on or are just using as a tool to experiment with telling stories interactively.
Who is this course for?
Anybody who has a story to tell, whether it is that of a place, a brand, a novel, a play or a film or TV series.
Here are the details on the two courses:
- Course Code: CRN 10020 – Interactive Storytelling
- 6 week course
- Tuesday Nights from 18:30 – 21:30 (6:30 – 9:30 pm)
- North Shore Campus
- March 2, 2010 – April 6, 2010
- This is a non-credited course through Continuing Studies.
- Course Code: BCST 1073 – Interactive Storytelling
- 10 – 12 week course
- 3 – 3 1/2 hours a week
- Course Date Pending: Either April or September
- This is a credited course through the Broadcast Communications Program, but don’t let that scare you off, as it is open to the public and you do not have to be a full time student to take it.
Also stay tuned for an Interactive Storytelling Course for Youth during the Spring Break with the Delta School District!
Ooey Gooey Good Animal Tracks: Our Annual Holiday Activity
At Ahimsa, we have a tradition of sharing a yearly activity that can be enjoyed with friends and family, and you don’t have to be a kid to have fun with it.
One of my favourite winter time activities is animal tracking, especially in the snow. I love finding animal tracks, identifying them, and creating stories of the critters that left the tracks behind on their travels. And animal tracks can be found anywhere in winter, even if there is no snow. If there isn’t any snow, go hunting in the mud or on ground where the mud has hardened, for some tracks.
Here are some fun kitchen goodies that are easy for all ages to whip up and can help you to learn your animal tracks.
Peanut Butter Snack Tracks (A Tracey Temple Invention)
Recipe:
- Mix ½ c peanut butter, ½ c icing sugar, 1 tbsp softened butter, and ½ c Rice Krispies together.
Activity:
- With your young ones or the young at heart, take a heaping spoonful of the peanut butter mixture, flatten the peanut butter ‘dirt’ and make the imprints different animal tracks in it, using the picture of animal tracks as a guide.
- Stick the peanut butter tracks in the fridge to harden.
- Whilst your peanut butter tracks are hardening, enjoy a winter walk and search for animal tracks, identify them, and create stories of the travels of the animals that left the tracks behind.
- Share your animal track stories and teach your family and friends some track id as you enjoy your peanut buttery snacks.
You can also find last year’s paper making activity here.
Happy Holidays!
The Gang at Ahimsa Media
Emme Out & About Kissing Calendars for Dyslexia
It’s been a year now since we pushed Emme Rogers out from behind her computer screen and out into the real world, and we are proud to see her flourishing in real life as well as cyberspace. Like any proud parents, seeing your kid making their way in this world, and in this case, truly embracing the reality of cross-platform storytelling, is rewarding to see.
Emme at the Launch of Reading is Sexy (Photographer: John Biehler)
This Saturday we will be proudly looking on as Emme makes her debut in Toronto society, kissing calendars for dyslexia! If you are in Toronto, come and meet Emme Rogers from 1 – 3 pm, Saturday December 19th at Ben McNally Books (366 Bay Street). You can also support The International Association of Dyslexia and promote literacy by buying a Reading is Sexy calendar. Calendars are on special for $18 at the event or $20, if you want to kick in an extra $2 to dyslexia. Cash or cheques will be accepted.
Stick around afterwards and Emme will be heading to a pub with anyone that wants to join her. And knowing Emme, she will buy a couple of plates of nachos and a few pitchers of beer for the table.
All in the Name of Literacy
Our sincerest of apologies to the Vancouver Community for any over-inflation we may have done to the following individuals egos, by placing them in a calendar, entitled Reading is Sexy:
- Monique Trottier – @somisguided
- Lori & Richard Yearwood
- Patrick Tubajon – @iheartgudrun
- Raul Pacheco-Vega – @hummingbird604
- Ian A Martin – @atomicfez
- Rayne
- Lorraine Murphy – @raincoaster
- Mark Leiren-Young – @greenpieces
- Monica Hamburg – @monicahamburg
- Ian Ferguson
- Emme Rogers – @EmmeRogers
You see, it is for a good cause and all in the name of literacy. Aside from sadly feeding Emme’s ego and launching her into a new-to-her form of media, the calendar, we are helping her to raise funds for a cause that both she and we believe in - literacy, and more specifically, dyslexia. A healthy portion of the proceeds from the calendar and the photo auction will be going to The International Dyslexia Association to help them get kids (and adults) with dyslexia to overcome their literary hurdles and have fun with words.
As our way of apologizing to the community, for allowing the above individuals to call themselves Miss, Ms, Mrs or Mr (Insert Month here) for the next year, we are helping Emme to throw a Reading is Sexy Literary Celebration this Thursday. Here are the details:
Cost: Free
Local: Gudrun Wine & Cheese Bistro (150-3500 Moncton Street, Steveston, BC)
Date: Thursday December 3, 2009
Time: 7 pm until late
Festivities:
- general revelry and enjoying of Gudrun Goodies (We will buy a few plates for the room, but bring some money with you to enjoy more Gudrun Goodies and some of the delicious wines and beer)
- readings from a few of our authors (Ian Ferguson, Mark Leiren-Young, Lorraine Murphy, Raul, Rayne … to name a few …Emme may even read something from my yet to be finished novel)
- special guest reading by comedian, Kirsten Van Ritzen
- calendar signings by the ‘models’ on hand
- auctioning of some of Robert Shaer’s photos from the shoot for charity
Come, heckle our various months and enjoy a good night of laughter.
And once again, our sincerest apologies, and please don’t blame the photographers, Robert Shaer and Tris Hussey, for this.
Oh and if you can’t make Thursday, but do want a calendar, you can order one here. (If you are in and around Vancouver, ignore the shipping costs as we or Emme can figure out physically getting it to you. Similary, you can ignore shipping costs and pick up a calendar directly from the Canadian Branch of The International Association of Dyslexia, if you are in Toronto.)
Brands Can Be Storytellers too!
A common misconception that we encounter with people when we tell them that we are interactive storytellers is that we create dynamic stories for children or that we strictly work with traditional stories in the form of books, movies, television series and films to make their stories more dynamic and interactive. This is a myth (although we do indeed work with traditional stories to make them more interactive, but our stories are not limited to traditional stories).
Storytelling is an age old art and tradition that allows us to pass on information in a manner that will be remembered. The most powerful ad campaigns build a story around their product or company. Similarly the most powerful political campaigns or actors have been adept at building stories around themselves. This is what creates brands that people remember. It doesn’t matter how old we get, everybody loves a good story and if you can create one around your brand, people will remember you. Dove for example was brilliant in the building of ad campaigns that made them synonymous with embracing the real female body in all of it’s curves.
Photo by Selca Morales
Now when we talk interactive storytelling, we are simply referring to making your story more dynamic and allowing your audience or customers to become a part of your story by interacting within it. Storytellers have done this for ages with dance, sound effects, song and costumes, when they have their audience present. The beauty of technology and the age of social media is we can now allow our audience to become a part of our story, even if they are not in the same room as us, the same city, the same country, or even the same hemisphere.
Photo by Rusty Stewart
To explore interactive brand storytelling some more, join me (Erica Hargreave) for a Back to School with Kontent workshop tomorrow (Tuesday September 1st) evening on Creating Interactive Brand Stories.
Back to School With Kontent
Summer is winding down, and with it my days of zaniness. Time to buckle down to more serious matters, like interactive storytelling!
Excited to be a part of Kontent Creative’s Summer School with a workshop on Interactive Brand Storytelling:
Creating Interactive Brand Stories
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 7pm – 9pm
No matter how many new technologies and forms of media we invent, the most powerful form of communication will always be the most ancient, the art of storytelling. The beauty of these new technologies and forms of media is that they are vehicles for stories that allow us to tell them in new ways and spread them to new audiences. They also allow our audience to interact within the story itself, allowing them to feel a part of it.
Often we think of stories as medium strictly for entertainment sake. The reality is that we are all storytellers, telling our own stories, that of a company or a brand, or those of the culture in which we live. The trick is recognizing what our story is and learning how best to tell it.
In this workshop, we look at examples of brand storytelling, identify what others stories are and how they are using the online space and social media to tell their brand’s story and engage with their audience. Just like the stories online, this workshop will be interactive and we will be doing some story building of our own.
Click here to register.
So what do you think - should I go with my summer look:
…or move on to the autumn wardrobe?
Lori Goes Viral
Howling with laughter!!! Always knew our very own Lori Yearwood was a Rock Star, but the paparazzi pics that spread virally of her on the web today proves it.
As seen on celebuzz.com, Lori's paparazzi pic!
Not much of a celebrity hound or quite frankly an advocate of star power, but I have to say that it was interesting to see how a paparazzi pic taken of our very own star, Lori Yearwood, could go viral on the web in a day. She’s on:
…. and the list goes on. And the funny part, the info they gave on all these sites isn’t even accurate. Same misinformation across the board. Just goes to show you that not everything you read, especially online, is true.
As for the original photographer? Not a clue, but glad nobodies jumping out of the bushes to shoot me.
Delta School District = a Social Media History Maker
Cross-post from DSD Youth Activities
Pretty impressed with the forward thinking of the Delta School District, as as far I am aware they will be one of the first school districts in Canada to fully embrace social media this summer, by actually offering students a course in it.
That’s right, the Delta School District is having me teach two mini-courses this summer on ‘Blogging and Storytelling’ and I’m pretty gosh, darn excited about it. I love Interactive Storytelling (which is a part of what using social media tools to tell story is), I love to share knowledge (especially that which excites me) and I love working with young people and seeing them get excited about learning.
So details on the classes? Here they are:
BLOGGING – STORYTELLING RESPONSIBLY & SAFELY (ages 10 – 15)
If our youth are going to blog, tweet or fire up flickr photos – on the new information highways – then might it be wise to teach them to do it in both a socially responsible and personally safe fashion? Join media arts specialist and Delta teacher Erica Hargreave as she helps students create their stories and characters online in a safe and responsible manner. This week of storytelling explores the use of social media tools which are becoming more and more a part of their lives. And of course … don’t forget your digital camera!
Fee: $70
ID 8153 July 6 -10 9:00 – 11:00 am Seaquam Secondary
ID 8154 July 13 – 17 1:00 – 3:00 pm Delta Secondary
Nervous about your child learning how to use social media? Well, I hate to say it, but it is just like sex. You can hide it from them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to experiment on their own. By showing young people the cool things they can do with social media and storytelling, we can encourage them to be safe, show them how to be safe and how to use the tools responsibly. I also might add, that it is the knowledge of how to use these tools safely and responsibly that a lot of businesses are looking to young people for guidance, opening those that know how to do this to a lot of opportunity.
Hope to see you and your young storytellers this summer!