Digital Storytelling: What I Did This Summer

As I have explored the world of iPads, kids, technology, art and education I have been thrilled to find so many inventive apps that focus on developing creativity.  Some of the best are reviewed on this site.  What has been a bit of a surprise is that there are so many applications that make it easy for kids and really anyone to tell a/their story and share it.


Why is that important?

We need to hearing the stories of others. It is especially important when decisions to wage war and destroy lives on the other side of the world happens in a heart beat. We need to be reminded how much we have in common.

This project is the mother lode when it comes to digital stories. If you haven't seen it, Life in A Day is one of the most exciting films I have seen this year.  Director Kevin Macdonald (with Scott Free and YouTube) created a partnership what enlisted the global community to capture a moment of their day on camera...one specific day, July 24, 2010.  The response was 80,000 videos submitted to YouTube, consisting of 4,500 hours of glimpses into the lives of contributors from all of the globe.  

Very cool idea, and certainly something that could not have happened without YouTube.  How else could something of this scale have been pulled off? The total brilliance of this film is in the editing. Joe Walker and his team took seven weeks to put it together. Twenty-five full time employees screened the entries and rated them and identified themes.  The film is arranged chronologically, but with various other threads throughout. There is a flow and rhythm to the segments as they weave through the lives of hundreds of videographers from every corner of the Earth.  It is possible to view the film in its entirety on YouTube. Here is the trailer.

What I Did This Summer pales in comparison to this amazing documentary, but it is a small part of my story.  Sock Puppets, Picle and ToonTastic are inspiring me to think about new ways to share information and what makes our individual experiences unique and special.