Thanks to all our military veterans. Your sacrifices and the sacrifices of your families have given us the freedoms we enjoy today, and secured the blessings of liberty which we are well advised never to take for granted.

To learn more about these oral history projects, check out the wiki site we’ve created for Story Chasers Inc. Also follow Storychasers on Twitter.

OKLAHOMA VETERAN TRIBUTE VIDEOS

Of the 842 videos currently shared on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices, 37 are tagged “veteran” because they are videos about military veterans. Here are a few of our recent submissions.

Howard Goins (1 min, 58 sec) – A Howe Public School student, Annie Shelton, created a video to recognize her grandpa, Howard Goins, a U.S. Navy Veteran.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Billie Krantz (39 sec) – A student, Dustin Osborne, creates a digital story of his Grandpa, Billie Krantz. Mr. Krantz is a U.S. Army Veteran who served in the Korean War.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

A Dedication to The Veterans In My Life (1 min, 28 sec) – A student, Phillip Bookout, created a video recognizing the U.S. veterans in his life.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

KaytlynB. (2 min, 42 sec) – A student from Perry, Oklahoma, shares stories of her grandfather’s military service.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Sasha’s Father (2 min, 11 sec) – A student from Perry, Oklahoma, shares stories of her father’s military service.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Veteran Keith Newton (2 min, 9 sec) – Lauren shares a story about her Father, Keith Newton, a US military veteran.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

KANSAS VETERAN TRIBUTE VIDEOS

These are three videos created by Vicki Sherbert‘s students in Wakefield, Kansas. Each of these videos were uploaded to YouTube and embedded on the CKV website.

A Time at War (6 min, 30 Sec) – Cayley’s father tells about his experiences in Iraq.

Living in the Air Force (5 min, 56 sec) – Abi’s great-uncle tells about his experiences serving in the Air Force.

A Soldier’s Story (5 min, 57 sec) – Siarra interviews a special soldier about his experiences in the army.

Technorati Tags:
day, kansas, oklahoma, video, videos, military, veteran, veterans, veteransday, tribute

“Integration at Wagoner” by Sonya Farr tells the story of Coach Bill Benham, Sonya’s father, who led the first integrated basketball team at Wagoner. Wagoner is located about fifty miles west/southwest of Lowrey School, just north of Muskogee. It is wonderful Sonya was able to actually interview her father for this digital story, since this “history” comes alive so much more hearing it directly from him. It reminds me of a digital story a coach in Miami, Texas, created at a workshop I facilitated there around 2005. He told about what it was like to be a player on one of the first integrated basketball teams in West Texas. Stories like this which relate what it was like during the early days of desegregation are often powerful. These stories can be good catalysts for discussions about equal treatment, racism, discrimination, and human rights.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Kevin Crossno, a social studies teacher at The Casady School in Oklahoma City who attended COV at Lowrey, created a digital story titled, “The Founding of BSA.” As a Boy Scout myself, I really enjoyed hearing Kevin relate this history and particularly the fact that the first Boy Scout Troop in the United States was chartered in Pawhuska, Oklahoma! Boy Scouting in the USA is celebrating its 100 year anniversary this year!

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

I love food and food festivals, and Rachael Ranallo piqued my interest to visit the annual Italian Festival in McAlester, Oklahoma at the end of May this year with her digital story. The music she used added so much to the story!

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Last of all, Jennifer Swafford shared the digital story, “Planting the Pines at Lowrey.” This is a great example of how teachers as well as students can help preserve their local, community history. Without storytellers like Jennifer, stories like this might not be shared online and preserved for generations to come. I loved seeing the current photos of these huge trees, and hearing the story about when they were planted years ago by Jennifer’s great uncle, Harold Terry. Jennifer’s dad, Benny Cassidy, tells the story, with help from his digital storytelling daughter.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

If you are interested in participating in a Celebrate Oklahoma Voices workshop this year, we have seven more workshops this summer which still have open slots available. A total of 16 COV workshops are scheduled at this point through August in different parts of the state. Our workshop model includes ten to twenty-five participants, and if a workshop is not full educators from other schools can register to attend. We will also be offering a Celebrate Kansas Voices (CKV) workshop in Manhattan August 4-6, and more information about that opportunity (including cost and registration details) will be forthcoming next week.

Anyone is welcome to join both the Celebrate Oklahoma Voices learning community (with 787 members currently, and 574 videos) as well as the Celebrate Kansas Voices learning community which is just getting started. Learn more about Storychasers, the non-profit which presents COV and CKV, by visiting and subscribing to the Storychasers blog and following Storychasers on Twitter. Complete details about the Celebrate Oklahoma Voices digital storytelling model are available on the COV project wiki.

Technorati Tags:
digital, history, integration, lowrey, oklahoma, school, storytelling, wagoner, basketball, boy, scouts, scout, bsa, italian, festival, food, mcalester

“In Honor of My Grandfather” was created by Laney Miller, as a tribute to her great-grandfather who was born in 1929 in Shamrock, Oklahoma. He served in the Korean War, and wrote letters to his wife and family during his overseas military service to keep them updated about his life. Laney did a fantastic job writing and reading her script based on those letters, and synchronizing personal photos from her grandfather into her digital story.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Emily and Rheanna, 8th graders at Tenkiller Elementary School in Cherokee County, Oklahoma, created the video “Veterans Day 2009” to provide historical background about the celebration of Veteran’s Day in the United States, as well as a tribute to many the veterans who are family members of students in their school. This video was used as part of the school’s commemorative events to celebrate Veteran’s Day yesterday.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Haley Jones, a 7th grader at Tenkiller Elementary School in Cherokee County, Oklahoma, created the video “My Heroes” to pay tribute to both her grandfathers who served in the U.S. Armed Forces. She included interview audio for part of her video, which is 2 minutes long.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Kudos to Pam Henley and these students for FANTASTIC work helping recognize and thank some of our Oklahoma veterans, and contributing these videos to our growing video archive (now including over 470 videos) on our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices learning community.

Technorati Tags:
cov, history, interview, oklahoma, tribute, veteran, video

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Not only is it fantastic to work with a superintendent like Terry who is leading the educators of his district by modeling digital learning and sharing, it is also eye opening to consider how valuable his asynchronously-shared wisdom can be for other administrators as well as crisis planners. Terry serves as a guest speaker for university classes from time to time, and this year has shared this video with an instructor and class in advance to introduce some of the issues and points he’ll make in his face-to-face presentation. It’s great to see our COV videos and the skill set COV participants acquire through the workshops being used to effectively “blend” learning experiences before and during face-to-face instructional times.

Terry Brown is an inspiration, not only for the exemplary leadership he provided to the citizens and residents of Bridge Creek during and following the 1999 tornado disaster, but also for the leadership he continues to provide as a school superintendent serving in Earlsboro. I hope in the months ahead, more superintendents in and outside of our state will follow his example in getting “hands on” with digital storytelling and storychasing.

Technorati Tags:
celebrate, cov, digitalstorytelling, inspiration, leadership, oklahoma, voices, earlsboro, bridge, creek, bridgecreek, f5