Our website submission / contribution form includes a space to provide information about your video which you’d like others to read and know about concerning your video. Things you might consider including in your post are:

1. “Backstory” information about the video other people wouldn’t know or guess by just watching it.
2. Why did you create this video?
3. Who has seen this video since it’s been published and what kinds of good things have happened as a result?
4. Who should see this video?
5. What are some of the things you think other people will or should learn as a result of seeing this video?

To be valid and accepted for our drawing, entries must:

1. Be submitted and received online. NLT (no later than) midnight CST on April 30, 2012.
2. Be submitted by an adult 18 years or older.
3. Include at least THREE COMPLETE SENTENCES providing more information / backstories about the submitted video.
4. Be complete, with all required fields in the submission form filled appropriately.

Individuals MAY submit more than one video to enter this drawing, but may only submit one entry per video. For example, if you have submitted three different videos to one of our online learning communities, you can submit an entry for each video so you’ve entered three times. You may NOT submit more than one entry for the same video.

If you’d like to see an example submission, see the post, “72 Years of Free Barbecue: The XIT Rodeo and Reunion.”

The iPad3 and iRig microphone drawing will be held in early May 2012, and the winner will be announced here on our website.

If you have questions or comments, please share them here on this post. Please spread the word and tell others about this opportunity! We will be sharing submitted entries / posts on storychasers.org (this website) in upcoming weeks and months as a way to further amplify many of the GREAT stories shared on COV, CKV and CTV! If you’re interested in hosting a Storychasers workshop at your school or in your area, please see our frequently asked questions (FAQs) for more information.

Technorati Tags: video, contest, drawing, ipad3

This is a video I created in 2010 when my family and I had a chance to attend the XIT Rodeo and Reunion in Dalhart, Texas. This is an annual event which started in the 1930s during the dust bowl, to provide a positive and fun event in Dalhart which celebrates the people and history of the region. I read about this in Timothy Eagan’s book, “The Worst Hard Time.” The XIT Ranch included over 3 million acres of land at its peak, which was sold by the Texas legislature in 1879 in exchange for $3 million used to build the Texas State Capitol. The XIT Rodeo Reunion continues to be the world’s largest free barbecue event.

This post was submitted by Wesley Fryer.

This effort to empower people to create place-based digital stories reminds me of the Murmur Project in Canada. Murmur is (or was, I’m not sure if it’s ongoing) an “archival audio project” which provided people opportunities to dial phone numbers and hear stories about places in a local community which had been recorded to a phone-based recording system. OnCellSystems and Guide By Cell are two companies providing commercial solutions for mobile walking tours. The August 2008 podcast, “A Conversation about the Cell Phone Audio Tour at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum,” provides more information about how an OnCellSystems solution is in use by the U.S. National Park Service in Oklahoma.

I learned about the Murmur project in 2006 when I first heard Joe Lambert share a presentation about digital storytelling at the SITE conference in Orlando. (An audio podcast of a conversation with Joe from that conference is still available.) Joe is the co-founder of The Center of Digital Storytelling based in Berkeley, California. Follow them on Twitter @storycenter. I co-presented with Joe in Hangzhou, China, in 2009, and an audio podcast recording of that session is also available.

Locacious and Tourbuddy are two other iOS applications designed to help people create mobile tours of different locations. Have you tried any of these applications yourself? Are you aware of others?

Asking students to research local spots of interest, gather multimedia artifacts about those locations and then create a free walking tour available to the community is a GREAT project for student Storychaser clubs to take on.

Hat tip to Florida educator Alison Hannon for sharing about Mobile Feast via Twitter.

Technorati Tags: app, iphone, walking, tour, ios, moveable, feast, multimedia, storytelling

3rd grade students are working with their principal, Carla Smith, to write articles about school news and record their articles as a “radio show.” Radio WillowWeb from Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska, is an inspiration to these young Storychasers. Tony Vincent (original founder of Radio Willowweb and author of the “Learning in Hand” website) along with Maine educator Bob Sprankle (the creative genius behind the New York Times acclaimed “Room 208 Podcast”) are also major inspirations for the idea of a student Storychasers club.

A website for the group is being established and their first program will be published soon. The Storychaser student clubs in Yukon are pilot groups starting in Spring 2012. Hopefully, if things continue to go well, this is program which will expand to other schools in months to come. Learn more and sign up for updates on the Storychasers’ mailing list by visiting storychasers.org/clubs.

Technorati Tags: club, elementary, oklahoma, student, yukon, storychasers, storychaser, skyview, record

Instead of Flip cameras, which have been discontinued by Cisco and do not import video in a Mac-friendly format, Storychasers recommends student videography teams use iPod Touches or iPads for quick-edit videography. In addition, an external microphone is a MUST to improve audio quality. (A $60 iRig mic, available via the Apple Store, was used in the video above.)

Congrats to Mustang Elementary students and staff, and kudos to Mrs. Seemler for applying for and winning this student technology grant!

Forensic Science by Anita Cosby (An introduction to forensic science class)

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Starbase 2011 by Pamela Sue Gilder (Video about a fifth grade class during their six week adventure through Strarbase)

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Ben Franklin Science Academy’s Friendship Garden “The Green Patch” by Sandra Marie Riley (A story about the “Green Patch” that touched a community)

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

It will be great to see the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) related videos our workshop participants create next week at OSU! More information about hosting and requesting a Storychasers workshop is available on the frequently asked questions (FAQ) page of our website.

Technorati Tags:
science, stem, video, videos, workshop

1. Helping your students become more creative?
2. Learning more about STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers for your students?
3. Obtaining “digital backpack” equipment (including a new digital camera, digital audio recorder, headset with microphone, and more) you and your students can use to create videos for class assignments?
4. Learning how to successfully facilitate student video projects for class?
5. Learning how digital fabrication labs (FabLabs) can energize your students about STEM career fields?
6. Joining an educational community of digital storytellers in Oklahoma?
7. Obtaining a $500 scholarship to attend a three day workshop FOR FREE focused on these activities?

If so, you need to apply for the “Teaching Creativity and Innovation to Inventive Minds” workshop scheduled for Wednesday, August 3rd through Friday, August 5th on the campus of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. The application deadline is Friday, July 29th. This workshop is co-sponsored by the College of Education at OSU and Storychasers. Day one of the workshop will focus on ideas for student creativity, STEM careers, and “digital fabrication” labs which students use to design and create originally designed materials using special computer software and hardware. No prior experience with digital fabrication is required. Days 2 and 3 of the workshop are the “phase 1″ digital storytelling workshop offered by Storychasers for the Celebrate Oklahoma Voices oral history project. You will learn how to create a short, 3 to 5 minute video focusing on some aspect of creativity, STEM careers, or STEM themes discussed in our workshop and share it on the third day.

Please complete our online registration Google form to register and apply for a full scholarship to attend this workshop, or apply to pay with available professional development funds from your school district. Slots are limited, and a total of ten scholarships are available. A maximum of 25 participants will be selected for this workshop. Those interested in attending but NOT selected for a scholarship can participate for $499 or $249, depending if participants want to keep “digital backpack” equipment following the workshop. Selected participants are required to attend all three days of the workshop training, which will be held from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Participants will also be expected to facilitate at least one student-created digital storytelling project in the six months following the workshop.

The online registration form link is:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dHQxSlowZnhlSHBaQVItb1VuX1lIZmc6MA#gid=0
or
http://tinyurl.com/storychasers11

This workshop will be led by Dawn Danker, a certified Storychasers lead facilitator and the CIO of Yukon Public Schools, and Dr. Susan Stansberry of Oklahoma State University’s College of Education. If you have questions about the workshop, please contact Wesley Fryer, Executive Director of Storychasers by phone, email or Twitter.

(888) 384-5953
wesfryer@pobox.com
@wfryer

A 1 page PDF flyer about this workshop opportunity is also available. Please forward and share this information with other Oklahoma educators. Past participants in Celebrate Oklahoma Voices (COV) workshops are NOT eligible to attend this special workshop on scholarship, but may pay to attend. Anyone is welcome to join our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices online learning community, which now has over 900 videos created by Oklahoma teachers and students:
http://lc.celebrateoklahoma.us/video

Videos and membership on our learning community websites are moderated by Storychaser project facilitators. More information is also available about hosting a Storychasers digital storytelling workshop for your school or in your area, in Oklahoma or other locations:
http://storychasers.org/faq/

• June 28-29, 2011 in Haysville, Kansas
• July 25-26, 2011 in Greenbush, Kansas
• August 3-4, 2011 in Andover, Kansas

View Summer 2011: Celebrate Kansas Voices in a larger map

Be sure to check out some of the latest videos shared on our Celebrate Kansas Voices Ning website. We now have over 65 videos created by Kansas students and teachers!

Register to join us, and please forward this information to others you know who may be interested! A 1 page PDF marketing flyer about the workshop is available.

Why attend our 2 day workshop?

• Digitally preserve history
• Create and share a video
• Develop digital literacy skills
• Use MEDIA to meet curriculum standards
• Join a community of innovative educators
• Get cool technology gadgets

Workshop cost is $499 or $249 per person, depending on whether you want to KEEP ‘digital backpack’ equipment after the workshop. Submit the Storychasers Workshop Registration Inquiry and Storychasers will send you the official workshop registration link. Call or email Storychasers if you’d like more information.

If you have TitleIID professional development funds, or other professional development funds from grants or other sources, our two day workshop is a wonderful learning experience for educators that has direct, measurable impacts on classroom instruction through the videos students create with teachers afterwards. We hope to see you in a Storychasers’ workshop this summer!

Why attend our 2 day workshop?

• Digitally preserve history
• Create and share a video
• Develop digital literacy skills
• Use MEDIA to meet curriculum standards
• Join a community of innovative educators
• Get cool technology gadgets!

Workshop cost is $499 or $249 per person, depending on whether you want to KEEP ‘digital backpack’ equipment after the workshop. Submit the Storychasers Workshop Registration Inquiry and Storychasers will send you the official workshop registration link. Call or email Storychasers if you’d like more information.

Technorati Tags:
digital, digitalstorytelling, history, oklahoma, oklahomastate, oralhistory, osu, storytelling, workshop

The Cherokee Language by Janice Ballou tells the story of family gatherings in ‘days gone by’ when stories were shared in Cherokee. According to Janice, “stories are always funnier and scarier when they are told in Cherokee!” Janice also interviewed kindergarten teacher Faye Ross, who explained how she teaches her students the Cherokee language to enhance their cultural literacy and pride in their Cherokee heritage.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Mom’s Pretty Boy Floyd Story by Tambra Dewey is an adorable interview with Tambra’s mother, who relates a story she was told as a child by her grandmother who used to cook and give shelter to Pretty Boy Floyd and his gang in the 1930s near Salina, Oklahoma.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Kenwood Cultural Day Presentation by Wanda Wilson McBride describes Kenwood School’s 2011 Cultural Day which celebrated Cherokee culture. Her retelling made me want to bring my own kids to this special event next year!

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Kenwood School Cherokee Choir by Faye Ross features an interview with music teacher Janice Ballou. The Kenwood Choir has traveled and shared the Cherokee language as well as songs in a remarkable number of places including Washington DC and Japan. “Through the music, kids can express themselves, and that is why I love sharing music in the Cherokee language.” I LOVE the music tracks Faye included in this video!

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Grandmother’s Story by Annetta M Bundy tells the remarkable tale of Annetta’s grandmother who “led a busy life with two husbands and twelve children (including a set of identical twin girls.” The hardships of the past can barely be comprehended by students today who are blessed with so many things as well as opportunities. Digital stories like this one can help us connect and remember.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

If you are trying to view these videos on an iOS device like an iPad or iPhone, I encourage you to use the Skyfire Web Browser ($3) to convert the Flash-format videos on the fly to a format readable on Apple mobile devices. We are in the process of working on a transcoding solution for our videos on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices, as well as Celebrate Kansas Voices and Celebrate Texas Voices.

If you are in or near Oklahoma or Kansas, please register to attend one of our two day digital storytelling workshops this summer! Our opportunities to digitally create, learn and share continue!