Digital storytelling is a big part of what I do. I help people to tell stories. I’m a non-executive director of Curiosity Creative, a social enterprise devoted to community storytelling.
If my 46 year old self could have mentored my 23 year old self in being a training professional, what would I have said? I’ve been a staff developer in various guises since 1998, stumbling into the profession mostly as an escape route from another plan that hadn’t worked out. I brought with me a […]
This post was originally published on Inspiring Learning, where I do most of my worky blogging. It’s not often we get to do overseas work in this job, but last weekend I was at the international digital storytelling conference in Greece, running a workshop on digital storytelling using 360 video. I’m going to hold my […]
Lawrie’s been at it again! Following a conversation with Amber Thomas, he posted last night about classic tales and our relationship with ed tech referring to classics like “Stone Soup”, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and so on and he asked for people to contribute ideas for other narrative types that characterise the ed tech landscape. […]
I’ve started keeping a video diary about my recovery from ME. It’s an attempt to take back control rather than a plea for sympathy.
For far too many people, the student experience involves extreme difficulties and trauma. While no substitute for proper pastoral care and safeguarding, storytelling can be an important part of dealing with those experiences and influencing change in an institution. But it’s not something to be undertaken lightly.
Last week’s Point of View on Radio 4 was from the academic Tom Shakespeare talking about “the power and peril of stories”. In a nutshell he’s saying that the persuasive power of stories has real social consequences and this can be used for good or ill. I’ve been trying to understand this more recently as it […]
I had the chance to make another digital story recently. It was for Curiosity Creative, an organisation I’m a trustee of. Alex, who runs the company, is collecting stories of people talking about objects that mean something to them for a project called The Story Box. This is mine… The Story Box collection is steadily growing […]
There’s a picture of kids visiting the Rijksmuseum, absorbed in their phones amongst the priceless artworks that pops up on social media like whack-a-mole from time to time. The message that some take from it isn’t accurate but it’s a useful window in the power of narrative and what that means in the “post truth” society.
Watch this trailer. It’s for the upcoming film Morgan and it’s very interesting. How effective do you think it is? Does it feel like all the other trailers you watch or different somehow. HINT: Don’t rewind it as the preamble gives some spoilerific context. You probably picked up on the clues before you got the […]
This wasn’t an easy read, but it was an enjoyable one. It was the other half of a 2 for 1 from Waterstones (the other was Jon Ronson’s excellent book on shaming) so I got it on the strength of the blurb rather then reputation. It’s going to be hard to describe this book without […]