Creatively Connecting Curriculum to the Digital Learner
Hello and Welcome back to the Meridian Stories Newsletter
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE DESIGN! CHECK IT OUT!
Phew. Just had to get that out. I am kind of pumped. Back to my ‘business voice.’
…We have been working hard over the summer, along with two industrious interns from Colby College, to rebuild Meridian Stories for these hybrid times. Please know that all of Meridian’s 125 Digital Storytelling Challenges can be completed in a remote learning environment. Whether worked on individually or collaboratively, the storytelling paradigm does not disintegrate in isolation. I would argue it gets stronger.
More on that in the next bi-weekly newsletter.
Narrative Flashpoint is back – a series of ‘Pandemic Challenges’ for the whole school year – and the Competitions feature 15 new Digital Storytelling Challenges and include a few innovations including:
- Working with a team of Decision Scientists to embed decision-making skills into two of the Challenges;
- Developing a trio of Cross-Disciplinary Challenges around the core concept of The River, that can be approached through STEAM, History and Language Arts; and
- Mixing up our usual combination of Comedy, Game Creation and Podcasting (among other formats) to round it all out.
Welcome to the new Meridian Stories. Please visit the site to experience our new identity and pore over our new 2020- 21 offerings.
– Brett Pierce [email protected]
Featured 2020-21 Competition
Speaking of Earthquakes…
Your team is challenged to create the next episode for the The Tip of the Iceberg podcast series. The series talks about natural disasters that you can’t always see until they are right in front of you. The show has done episodes on tsunamis, floods, volcanoes – and now earthquakes! The episode your team is creating will focus on a specific fault line and a past earthquake that occurred as a result of its movement. Your mission is to tell a scientific story that also delivers on the human experience and societal repercussions of this natural phenomenon.
Featured Support from The Digital Storytelling Resource Center –
Digital Rules – The Starting Line
Creating Digital Stories can involve a whole host of ‘rights’ issues when seeking to use images, music, sound or text from the Internet. Doctrine of Fair Use? Creative Commons Licenses? The Public Domain? In our Digital Rules: The Starting Line, we explain it all for you. And this Guide is the introductory document to an entire section about Digital Rules.
Check out this guide to learn more about Digital Rules
Featured Narrative Flashpoint Submission –
Monotonous
This two minute Narrative Flashpoint Story from a middle schooler was in response to the prompt, Motif Hunting: A Story Without Words. Here’s the prompt summary: “In a written story, if you take away the words, what are you left with? Nothing. In a digital story, if you take away the words, what are you left with? Imagery. Sound. Music. Those are three powerful elements with which to tell a story. Create a two-minute wordless story about a recurring motif (theme) that has emerged in your life amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.”