Ok so it’s time for an official announcement.

I have been working with some amazingly talented educators on developing a digital storytelling project that seeks participants from around the globe. Here is how it will work.

If you want to skip this and head straight to the up-until-now-top-secret wiki feel free. Find it at http://chriscraft.pbwiki.com - apologies for my name in the title, but Ramit and those cool folks at pbwiki hooked me up with a gold wiki and that’s the one they chose.

The project is designed to really bring out the personal thoughts and feelings that often lie deep within our students. If I learned one thing from David Jakes, it’s that storytelling needs to be personal, and from the heart.

The goal is that students would be able to really analyze life where they are. This makes it wonderfully scalable.

From the wiki:

I am going to begin with a discussion about life in other countries and the stereotypes we have here in the USA about other countries. We will then move into a discussion about real life in our area, and about how it is not quite as rosy as the tourist brochures might lead one to think. I will then ask the kids to begin thinking of how to tell the story of what life is really like here in the USA, in the south, to be specific.

Participating schools will be required to publish at least six stories by October 31, 2007 using a template available on the wiki. One of the reasons I chose pbwiki over competitors is thanks to Howard Martin, a DEN buddy that tipped me towards pbwiki’s extremely easy video uploading feature. You can upload a video directly into pbwiki and it will convert it and show it for you. Youtube is blocked at my school so no publishing there. This reduces the number of steps and/or confusion when posting.

More details can be found on the wiki, but if you are interested in participating, here is what I need you to do.

1. Check the wiki for the requirements and age preferences. If you meet them and agree with them, proceed to step 2.

2. Use the contact form on this blog to send me a note telling me who you are, where you are, and that you want in. I will then send you a contributor invite.

3. Add your name to the list of participants on the wiki. We’re up to six already, and our goal is at least ten. Will you join  us?

If you cannot participate, please consider blogging this project with a link to this post. The official tag is:

liferoundhere2007

I would be remiss if I did not expressly thank David Jakes and Jason Hando for the hours spent planning this thus far. I also want to thank Lynne Crowe for spurring me on to create a FAQ list.

We are working on a scoring rubric. More details on the project to come, I want to avoid this being a tediously long post. If you want to see more, just seek the Life Round Here category.

One more thing, if you are in a country where pbwiki is blocked, you may use any other wiki or web hosting solution you like, as long as you meet the requirements. Just contact me and I will send you the requirements in a different format so you can read them. We will accept other wikis and I’ll be glad to place links to them as needed.

Here’s to good stories!

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