Chris Lott

[photo by cogdogblog]

If my first day at my first NMC Conference is any indicator, I have an exciting few days ahead!

I chose to attend the Web 2.0 Storytelling in Education Workshop primarily because it was being conducted by Bryan Alexander, who I have been following in various media for a long time, and Alan Levine, who I’m privileged to call a friend and who needs no introduction to readers of this blog. Bryan is one of the busiest people I know (by observation and all accounts) but this was my first opportunity to meet him in person. It’s always fun– and a little intimidating and strange– to meet people in person for the first time, particularly when it’s someone I’ve followed and admired for a long time. I wasn’t disappointed– he is as sharp and funny as I expected and, judging from various allusions and asides we share many common interests– though I was surprised that Bryan isn’t 7+ feet tall (he’s more Gimli than Hagrid) and a little sad that The (infamous) Axe must not have cleared airport security.

[photo by cogdogblog]

As if I didn’t already have a big enough case of "the smalls" with Bryan and Alan leading the workshop, in walked Gardner Campbell, one of my biggest inspirations– as a teacher and as one who elegantly fuses the best of the classical and enlightenment characteristics of humanitas (my TTIX Keynote was, in part, an attempt to be Gardner-esque) with contemporary technology. Like Bryan, Gardner radiates warmth and intelligence… if there are auras, his is bright indeed. Needless to say, I was wholly intimidated within the first 15 minutes!

The workshop itself (you probably thought I’d never get to it) was lightly attended–only 10 participants– but there was a preponderance of people I already "knew" from their blogging and Twittering, including Phil Long and Nick Noakes. We spent most of the time working in small groups, collaborating on creating various elements of creating digital stories: brainstorming for an idea (based on our selection of a Mystery Place) generating visuals and multimedia, character voices.

"Web 2.0 Storytelling" is a term covering a broad set of ideas. I was a bit surprised that we worked together on creating stories. I’ve honestly not thought much about integrating the social element into the creation of stories… for me the Web 2.0 part of contemporary storytelling is the tools used to bring a story out of my head and the environment in which those stories are published, shared, commented on and hopefully remixed or integrated into other projects. I (and my students) work collaboratively using technology of various kinds, but not on projects that directly incorporate narrative. I admire the spirit of collaborative creation– I have various poetry-writing friends who have expressed interest in working together on poems—but, as I noted in the workshop, the thought of creating that way is only marginally more attractive than driving hot spikes into my eyes. That being said, despite believing that the best way for me to create is to retreat into my own mental space, I see value in the exercise, both in the experience and in the product as a rough draft, ready to be crafted, polished, honed, etc.

I also wonder about storytelling without stories—in the sense that activity in social systems and applications often come to tell a story over time. The narrative drive of these long stories is accomplished through accretion. Blogs tell the stories that are us, of course, but the mechanism is most explicit in Twitter, which encourages the vital mixture of formal and informal bits at a heightened pace. It strikes me that “good” blogging and Twittering (I do not hold myself up as an example in either one) demand the same elements of story, but distributed over different temporal periods than conventional stories. Over time, most (but, importantly, not all—there is still plenty of room for more formal and/or consistently information-oriented productions) of my favorite bloggers and Twitterers create a recognizable and unique character, and exhibit a relative consistency of voice (though not necessarily a consistent type of content or routinized philosophical positions).

I have many more open questions about Web 2.0/digital storytelling concerning both philosophy and techniques, but I need to spend some time reading the abundant writings about the genre and process before I start asking them.

The only real flaw in the workshop was its length… it was far too short. A full-day– or even a two-day– event would have been better. There simply wasn’t enough time for conversation and discussion to go long and deep!

Note: You can find all the toolswe used and discussed (and then some) on the workshop wiki page and in bookmark sets from Alan and Bryan.