During this period of social distancing, finding ways of connecting with others and strengthening bonds in communities has become even more pressing. By its nature, digital storytelling is a tool to facilitate closeness over physical distances. To continue its pursuit of community cohesion, the Social Innovation Hub will launch an online version of its main digital storytelling course.
Building on the work of the Common Good First digital storytelling module, Thandiwe Matyobeni from Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 designed an innovative and highly interactive online experience for participants to learn the digital storytelling process. Participants will engage with everything from the theoretical to the practical and will make use of data free and open-access technology to facilitate the development of a story circle and to ultimately teach them how to create a digital story (video).
Digital storytelling can be used to facilitate innovative approaches to various aspects of social life, from individual healing, to community engagement to academic research. It’s a malleable and interpretive process that aims to stimulate reflection and empathy. Practically, creating a digital story involves a process of group story-building, introspection and digital skill development. In this workshop, participants are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences to create a meaningful story using video editing software. The aims of this is to help the group produce a story and also adapt the method to their own needs and potentially train others.
This course will be piloted with members of RUCE’s BuddingQ and Nine-Tenths volunteer programs. It’s a six-week course run on RUconnected and comprises nine sections. Participants upload drafts of their stories onto the platform as documents, photos or voice notes and receive collaborative feedback from other participants. The participants keep in contact through chats and story circles meet using video conferencing.
The course pilot will run from 13 July - 4 September with participants averaging 2 to 2,5 hours of engagement per week.
Should you wish to take part in this (FREE) pilot please contact Anna (a.talbot@ru.ac.za). Participants welcome on a first-come-first-served basis.