In the wake of YouTube viral sensation Jefferson Bethke’s “I love Jesus but hate religion” video, NPR reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports on the impact of digital stories — particularly music videos — in religious contexts. An excerpt from her story: No matter what you think of Mitchell’s interpretation of Christianity, one thing is clear. …
Thaler Pekar is a talented and innovative consultant who works with a variety of organizations and causes, using the tools of narrative. Here she writes about the “benefits of building a narrative organization,” and here about “working with stories.”
Here’s a handy little guide for using digital storytelling in project-based learning settings. While this was created for high school teachers in the public school setting, it’s also useful for those of us working with other age groups in faith formation settings.
Caroline Cerveny, the “Cyber pilgrim,” points to this nifty free site that supports adults in helping kids tell stories and share them digitally. It’s called Little Bird Tales, and Caroline suggests some simple ways to use it in religious education.
“The work of the people” has long been a phrase used to describe liturgy. Now it’s also the name of a thoughtful website which gathers up the work of artists who produce media for communities of faith. They also produce a video magazine, Alter Video, which is chock full of interesting digital stories. They’re a …
A recent Diane Sawyer special, Children of the Plains, prompted a group of school kids in the Todd Country School District (which serves the Rosebud Sioux Reservation), to create this alternative digital short telling their own stories: (Hat tip to Dakota O’Leary unplugged)
One of the challenges for Christians living into a liturgical calendar, is that the Christian season of Advent is one of waiting and thoughtful reflection yet it occurs at the height of the commercial pressures of the holiday season. Here’s a lovely small piece by Maggi Dawn that attempts to offer a different reflection for …
This is interesting. A new book which has just come out using research from the Barna Group, and talking about young adults and their faith, is being publicized via a website that invites people to send in or link to (using a specific tag) their own video stories. I’m going to be following the site …
A huge tip of the hat to the blog Racialicious, for pointing me to this TED talk by the novelist Chimamanda Adichie. She speaks of the danger of the “single story,” by which she means a story that is told of a whole people, or an entire city, or any group, which constrains the many …
Here’s a digital story that tells of the collaboration between middle school students from two very different contexts. It’s not “about” religion, per se, but it would be an interesting catalyst for having storytellers think about how to tell their stories.