I have been writing a long time and have learned some things, not only from my own long hard work, but from a writing class I had for three years. In this class were all kinds of people: prosperous and poor, stenographers, housewives, salesmen, cultivated people and little servant girls who had never been to high school, timid people and bold ones, slow and quick ones. This is what I learned: that everybody is talented, original, and has something important to say.

Brenda Ueland

Digital Storytelling is the process of oral storytelling with multi-media elements. Digital storytelling has become a wide movement and is gaining more supporters. This is because of the strong positive effects people are seeing to increase the number of people who can share their stories broadly through the implementation of digital storytelling. Several centers and initiatives have been created to help motivate people to share their stories. These include the Center for Digital Storytelling founded by Joe Lambert, the KQED Digital Storytelling Initiative founded by the KQED radio station, and Story Corps, an independent nonprofit. Digital storytelling has been shown to help create and build communities, to help people learn to communicate effectively and to help those reflect on their pasts.

Within these pages we hope you will find not only some ideas on the potential impact storytelling can have within your organization or community, but also some starting points for beginning your own journey into digital storytelling!

Please join us January 22nd and 29th from 9am to 1pm at the Mary E. Brown Center, East St. Louis, for a hands-on digital storytelling workshop!

This workshop will cover the entire digital storytelling process.

• From idea to captivating told story

• Using web journals, called blogs, to publish the story with text and pictures

• Recording storytellers for use on music players and distribution on the web

• Adding pictures and video to voice and to create full multimedia presentations

This two day workshop is especially aimed at community and organizational leaders and will conclude with a brainstorming session on ways digital storytelling can be used to help enhance existing programs and start new programs.

To maximize your learning experience, please come to this session with two or three story ideas. In addition, please review “The Importance of Digital Storytelling” and “The Process of Digital Storytelling” at prior to the first workshop.

Snacks will be provided!

Please note these sessions will be restricted to 25 people!

Please register at: http://stories.metroeastdigital.org/