Blogs

With limited time and resources, teachers are constantly struggling to keep up with rapidly changing media technologies while trying to help students gain the necessary 21st century learning skills in media literacy. In collaboration with the San Francisco Film Society, Creative Narrations offered a one-day workshop for teachers on September 26th.  Participants from different Bay Area schools learned how to mix media creation and media literacy into the classroom through a variety of activities and tools.  Thanks to all who made it out!

It's always a good thing to show appreciation for the people in our fields who go above and beyond the call of duty.  Creative Narrations interviewed and edited videos to honor awards recipients for the Arizona Refugee Resettlement Program Conference.  For each of the three recipients, we had no problem finding friends and colleagues to sing their praises on camera!  It was an honor to hear their stories and to play a part in giving thanks for the work that they do every day in this important field of refugee resettlement.  Congratulations to Bonnie, Julie and Shama!

It was such a joy heading back to Tucson to work with the folks from the Arizona Department of Education and Pima College Adult Education for the fourth year in a row. Creative Narrations Associate and IT guru, Evan Goldberg and I facilitated this 4-day train-the-trainer there to start off this year's Institute from June 29-July 2. The Institute model that they've adopted not only supports participating programs through follow-up support visits to their individual sites, but also encourages previous participants to return each year and work as a coach- to brush up on technical and facilitation skills. The stories were diverse and thoughtful. The group was amazing, and excited to start using this process in their work with English as a Second Language, Family Literacy and GED students. From new curriculum and staff development to advocacy efforts and new student recruitment, the applications of digital storytelling reach far and wide throughout Arizona Adult Education.

We're looking forward to this format which will allow us to more easily update you on our work, feature some of our highlights and allow for greater user interaction. This website was built with Drupal by our own Sean Effel, who has been offering Drupal training and development for several years. Please let us know if you have any suggestions or comments on our new site.

Creative Narrations has continued to grow in 2009. You can read more about our work in Alaska, see some of our other new clients, or view more recent stories all on our site. We are also growing in other ways, as Tasha expects her second baby in early August, and Jen is also expecting a little one in December! We might be traveling a bit less this year but we're getting good at the baby in one arm, laptop in the other technique.

We'll keep you posted with updates on all fronts!