Get together 21.6.07

All present except for Heidi, who is travelling the world!
We began with a discussion about how this project will impact on our work - and how we feel about the project.
Some of the points made are:

• we wonder how the teminology affects workers, and how they will respond to our request
• a good knowledge of the language and terminology allows us to interact and join in
• it would be good to write up a process so that we can all access the technology
• we've learnt what we needed at a particular time/purpose but that can be quite a narrow use of the technology that is available.
• we already feel somewhat overwhelmed by our current use of technology - how many things do we have to check just to see if someone is trying to contact us?
• this project will enable us to learn new skills and relate it to parts of our work, such as
• gathering stories;
• recording our personal stories;
• as a therapeutic strand
• as a safe space to tell stories
• we hope to build a library of stories - but wonder how that will be moderated

With our project we hope to allow community to articulate their story, and the technology allows them to reflect at the same time they are developing the story. It allows an outside perspective

We need to develop processes around developing stories with groups.

This project will provide starting points and ways of exploring the story chain. Taking the bsic idea and seeing how far you can stretch it in collaborative ways.

The project could be part of identity formation in the APY lands, especially for new youth workers in the community

The project is also a personal learning journey into technology for us and for the groups we work with in rural and remote locations, who at present may only be using emails

It offers a range of ways to express oneself - and can be anonymous. We are also aware of the immense power of visuals, and wish to utilise that.

We then spoke about follow up training and providing a forum for participants to seek clarification and further discussion.

We wonder how we can use the technology as an assessment tool

We also value all the incidental learning along the way, but realise that the focus is on developing programs that enable storytelling.

Consultation framework

It's time to contact our identified service providers/stakeholders/clients... you know, the community and health workers in a variety of settings, remote and otherwise. I have put together a template to get you started... you can paste it into word and print it out ready for your phone call or visit, or just use it as a guide for your own version.

Obviously the more data the better, so gather as many of these consults as you like - but only secure 1 of those for the workshop. Remember we need to find about 7 providers for the final workshop, so if we can all aim to get one each, that should do it.


‘Narrative Technologies’ consultation framework: service providers

Your name

Date of consultation

Method of consultation

Provide overview of project
Ø Work-based learning project
Ø Partnership between Hepatitis C Council of SA and Relationships Australia (SA)
Ø To investigate the use of storytelling using digital media as a hepatitis C educational tool
Ø To provide remote service providers with useful and engaging tools to use with their clients
Ø Clients can access hep C stories told by a range of people in SA
Ø Clients can tell their own stories using a non-identifying format
Ø Guidelines around creation and sharing of tools will be provided
Ø All tools will be free, easy to access and use

Why we are doing this consult
Ø A range of service providers contacted
Ø To understand the nature of your work
Ø Understand the range of educational settings
Ø Identify opportunities for using narrative tools

Name of provider

Organisation

Position in organisation

Location of work

Nature (description) of work setting

Nature of work activities concerning hep C education

Typical client profile

Access to technology, programs

Confidence using technology in educational context

Possible opportunities for using tools

Any other issues, concerns or ideas

Follow up actions

Attend workshop late October?
Ø Full day, travel and accommodation paid
Ø Meet other consultants
Ø We demonstrate tools to you
Ø Collect your feedback
Ø Together, plan use of tools

Record contact details

Some interesting links to browse

Hi all

If you have time, need inspiration or are putting off report-writing, check out these sites:

http://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/default.htm

http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/

http://www.acmi.net.au/digitalstorytelling.jsp

http://www.storycenter.org/index1.html

http://www.units.muohio.edu/technologyandhumanities/field.htm

http://www.storycenter.org/memvoice/pages/cookbook.html


and if you need more links..... http://www.tech-head.com/dstory.htm

Inspiration

I just came back from a few days in Melboune at the Hep C Health Promotion conference... it was very encouraging to hear the positives that the Hep C Council of SA are getting for the digital stories we have produced so far... people are accessing and using them from our website. Cool! and it seems that no-one else is doing anything with stories as educational tools.

The national body, Hepatitis Australia, is almost ready to lauch their new e-learning website, and they will link the digital stories from there. It made me resolve to get on and write some support/teaching material for those stories! I am sure that whatever we produce from this project will be welcomed by the (hep C health promotion) sector.

ciaow, Nicci

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