First meeting

It’s exciting to be at this point.. I feel like we’re on the cusp of heaps of learning, playing with technology, and creative experimentation.

We had our first meeting with everyone (except Deborah, who couldn’t be there) and huddled around a tiny coffee table with bits of paper overflowing… we made it through a mad agenda and managed to be productive at the same time.

First we looked at our understanding of what ‘narrative technologies’ means and developed some tentative criteria for beginning our searches for the appropriate programs, which will no doubt be refined as we discover the scope of what’s available.

Criteria for appropriate narrative technology programs:
Ø Options with the program – different levels of input (for flexibility of use)
Ø Simple to use – ‘low’ tech (suitable for all users)
Ø Accessible (easy to find, load and use)
Ø Truly representative (captures the stories well)
Ø Community-authored capabilities (not requiring expertise)
Ø Easy to grasp (does not require intensive instruction to use)
Ø Convertible to different formats (for sending, saving and posting etc)

I forgot to include this one on our list- but I think it also needs to be cost-free to use.

We also looked at who our health and community service providers might be (for consultation). We were looking for a range of settings, concentrating on rural, regional & remote settings, and came up with this as a starting place:

Service providers to target:
Ø Medical/clinic setting
Ø Counselling/therapeutic setting
Ø DASSA workers in a variety of settings
Ø Aboriginal health workers
Ø Corrections workers – nurse & educator
Ø PEACE peer educators

We also identified the support material that we would need to provide (in addition to the actual tools/program themselves) in order to make it usable for the service providers:

Support material needed:
Ø Guidelines for facilitating storytelling
Ø Resources for storytelling (free music, pictures, etc)
Ø Protocols for confidentiality and publishing

We will also need to look at how stories can be shared, accessed and stored. At the very least, this can happen through the Hepatitis C Councils website, which is moderated. Once we learn more from our service providers about how they might use the stories, we can pay more attention to this.


Meetings: PUT THESE DATES IN YOUR DIARIES NOW!!

Thursday 21 June 1:00 – 4:30 @ HCCSA
Friday 20 July 1:00 – 4:30 @ HCCSA
Thursday 23 August 1:00 – 4:30 @ HCCSA
Thursday 20 September 1:00 – 4:30 @ HCCSA
Thursday 18 October 1:00 – 4:30 @ HCCSA
Monday 12 November 9:00 – 12:30 @ HCCSA

Other business:
Ø Leslie agreed to be deputy Learning Facilitator
Ø Deb will be deputy Project Manager
Ø Nicci will organise speakers for June meeting – ‘facilitating storytelling’
Ø Andrew will post FlickR photos or images
Ø Heidi will set up the Protopage on the Learnscope website
Ø Nicci will produce a ‘standard rave’ for giving to targeted service providers and send to all team members via email
Ø Participants will make sure this blog captures everything we are doing and all team members to contribute with their own actions, findings, reflections etc