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!
Launching Ahimsa Media 2.0
Welcome everyone to the new and improved Ahimsa Media!!
As many of you are aware, Ahimsa Media has been undergoing some changes over the past year and a half, shifting our focus from Traditional Broadcast and Video Production to New, Social and Emerging Media Storytelling and we are loving it! In the busyness, it’s taken a while to update and rebuild the Ahimsa Media site to reflect our current focus and work, but here it is at long last!!!
So what are we up to these days?
Our main focus is on New, Emerging and Social Media Storytelling.
What does that mean? Well, that we consult with Traditional Media (films, tv series, video, books, magazines, writers, directors, advertisers ..etc), Businesses and Corporations to help them tell their stories to the new and interactive Social Media space. This involves building aspects of their stories online in an interactive manner or telling the behind the scenes story of the making of. An example of this would be Being Emme, one author’s adventures in the writing of her novels. We also built the original Sexy In Van City (2008), helped with the online promotion of the Vancouver Theatrical Release of Mark Leiren-Young’s The Green Chain, and are currently consulting on menvent.
Being Emme
As an accompaniment to New, Emerging and Social Media Storytelling Consulting, we are also busy educating on New, Emerging and Social Media Storytelling.
Photo Taken by Invoke Media at WIFF New Media Day 2009
Educational Initiatives have included:
- building Bridging Media with Megan Cole
- helping Achilles Media tell the stories of the 2008 nextMEDIA and the BANFF Television Festival online
- co-producing the 2009 WIFF New Media Day with Maayan Cohen and Danika Dinsmore.
Upcoming educational initiatives include:
- New, Emerging and Social Media Classes and Workshops taught by Tris Hussey and Erica Hargreave
- participating on a panel on Interactive Storytelling at the Yorkton Film Festival
- teaching two Social Media Storytelling Classes to teens through the Delta School District
Aside from that, we are busy as always with a few Traditional Media Projects. The current projects include:
- writing the scripts and education packages for four BC Health related ESL Videos for ELSA Net
- writing the educational package for the movie, The Green Chain
- regularly contributing to Cloverleaf Country Magazine