Digital Storytelling Workshop

I just finished a two-day Digital Storytelling workshop in New Jersey that went so well. I have three new wonderful examples created by several of the participants. This process is getting more refined, and I was grateful to the coordinator of the event for helping me to analyze the problems that came up over the two days, and strategies to prevent them in the future. I now have a second page to add to my workshop handout that covers the issues that came up this week. One more time, and I should have a workshop design that works well, at least for iMovie 3 or 4 for Macintosh OS X. Over the weekend, Dan and I discussed how we could adapt the process to MovieMaker2 for Windows XP. Not quite the same program, but it is the same price as iMovie (free!) and is a good tool to learn the basic process of building a digital story.

I am concerned about providing training that uses software that is not accessible to individuals or the average classroom. I remember a comment made by a participant at a California workshop earlier this spring, who had attended a CDS training a few years ago. She left the workshop without the confidence that she had the skills to independently create another digital story using Premiere or Photoshop, nor access to the software to be able to build those skills. Even when we got back from our own CDS experience last year, Dan bought Premiere, which continues to be his favorite video editing program, but I still think it has a pretty steep learning curve. I want participants in my workshops to leave with the confidence that they can replicate the process when they are on their own. I am anxious to read the comments from last week's workshop evaluation, since the feedback from the March workshop was so positive.