Hongkiat: 10 Free Tools For Digital Storytelling. “Digital storytelling is accomplished by combining narration with digital content such as animation, stills, audio, etc. It is very popular these days in schools and educational institutions around the globe. In this post, we discuss ten free tools for creating digital stories for your own purpose in the classroom.”
Syracuse University: New Podcast Explores How Technology Has Dramatically Changed Storytelling. “From news to fiction to film to photography to podcasts to social media and even the human voice, technological innovation has inspired and enabled new paradigms in storytelling. Last month, in partnership with Antica Productions and Trint and in association with WAER, the Newhouse School launched ‘StoryTech with Jeff Kofman,’ a podcast that explores this new era of storytelling.”
Mashable: The 21 best binge-worthy podcasts that tell one hell of a story. “With definitive beginnings, middles, and ends, the limited-series podcast as we define it is a contained story told over five or more episodes. Many of those on our list have other seasons tackling different subject matters. But we’re highlighting the best of the best.”
City College of New York: CCNY’s MFA in Creative Writing creates “Archives as Muse: A Harlem Storytelling Project”. “The storytelling project, directed by Michelle Valladares, lecturer and director of the MFA in Creative Writing, aims to include symposia, interviews, online workshops and exhibits as well as a resource section with links to public archives.”
The National (Scotland): Online Indy Tales library to help boost campaign for indyref2. “AN online library of short stories and poems in favour of Scottish independence has been launched ahead of the May 6 Scottish Parliament elections. The creation of Bob Hastings, a Scot who’s been living in Spain for more than 30 years, Indy Tales is a forum for exchanging fictionalised accounts of the need to regain this nation.”
EurekAlert: Exploring how storytelling tropes cluster in popular films. “An analysis of film tropes–common storytelling elements seen in different movies–explores combinations of tropes that tend to co-occur in films, identifying patterns that could help inform development of new movies. Pablo García-Sánchez and Juan Merelo of the University of Granada, and Antonio Velez-Estevez and Manuel Cobo from the University of Cádiz, Spain present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 31, 2021.”
Gippsland Times: Telling the stories of our history. “AN online platform has been launched to share stories from Victorian Traditional Owners and Aboriginal people – including a story a local massacre. As negotiations get underway for Australia’s first treaty, the new website, Deadly and Proud, features Aboriginal storytellers from across the state sharing their stories of pride in Aboriginal culture, resilience, community and the historic path to treaty and truth-telling.”
3 News Las Vegas: UNLV creates ‘story time’ resource for children & families. “UNLV has created a ‘story time’ resource for children and families amid the coronavirus outbreak. The university’s College of Education is creating read-aloud videos to recreate storytime for kids virtually while libraries and schools stay closed. An online library of nearly 50 stories is available, along with other videos and resources for parents and teachers, with new videos uploaded daily.”
EurekAlert: Storytelling can reduce VR cybersickness. “A storyline with emotionally evocative details can reduce virtual reality cybersickness for some people, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Waterloo found that storylines that provide context and details can help users feel immersed in VR experiences and can reduce feelings of nausea, disorientation and eye strain, depending on a user’s gaming experience.”
The Guardian: The cultural pioneers bringing oral storytelling to the next generation. “For millennia, Indigenous Australian communities have been passing down histories, knowledge, language and customs, largely through oral storytelling. But in a world of digital addiction, where even the most remote parts of the country are being infiltrated by smartphones, telling stories via screens is the new necessary: a way to both preserve tradition and reach out to the young.”
Hongkiat: How to Improve Writing Quality with Data Storytelling. “In our interconnected, globalized world, there’s a more significant need than ever for the kind of human connection and understanding that storytelling can convey. New technologies such as the big data revolution, data visualization, and data analytics tools allow us to raise the quality of our stories by backing them up with relevant data.” Ends abruptly — will there be a part 2?
The Conversation: Science needs myths to thrive. “What helped me develop as a researcher was reading stories about those who came before me. For scientific research to be successful in the long term, I think researchers need a strong set of values, including an unwavering commitment to the truth, and a drive to test any idea to destruction. Though they may seem opposed to the ideals of the rigorous scientific method, the best way of instilling these values is, as ever, through the stories and myths that we tell ourselves.”
New-to-me, from the University of Calgary: Blackfoot Oral Stories Database brought to life by ii’ taa’poh’to’p grant. “These stories have helped us to understand the underlying structure of the language and the ways in which it is similar to and different from other languages. But, as we did this work, it became increasingly clear to us that we can and must use our linguistic training to share the stories as they were intended — with members of the community. With this understanding, in 2016, Dr. Heather Bliss, PhD, adjunct assistant professor in the School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures created the Blackfoot Oral Stories Database, an online repository of oral stories. Since that time, the database has grown to include over 100 stories told by more than 20 storytellers.”
Library of Congress: Linking chatbots to collections for place-based storytelling. “The following is a guest post from Library of Congress Labs Innovation Intern, Charlie Moffett. In the course of crafting data-driven narratives with digital collections, he created @govislandbot and an open-source mapping tutorial. Below he shares his processes, some of the challenges he encountered, along with the code.”
The Next Web: One cryptic storyteller is using Twitter to craft thrilling interactive fiction. “Numerous esteemed authors have previously relied on Twitter to tell original Flash fiction, but one talented storyteller is pushing his tales way beyond the 140 character limit to create interactive scenarios that put you in charge of the story.”
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