Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

We’ve only begun to share our stories with the world. Make way for the Storychasers!

Several videos from last week’s COV workshop are now featured on our learning community website. This summer Storychasers is presenting one or two COV workshops around the state of Oklahoma EACH week. Our lead facilitators will feature different videos after each workshop, so keep checking back for new content throughout the summer.

Technorati Tags:
black, integration, oklahoma, african, american, mountain, view, gotebo

Sister’s Story by Brad Logan (5:28)

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Innocence Lost by Andrea (2:39)

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Unsung Heroes: Oklahoma Responds by Geraldine Southern (3:06)

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

A Day in the History of Oklahoma by Catherine Elizabeth Walling (3:20)

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Oklahoma City Bombing by Mallory-Randa-Jessica (2:09) – This was a student project

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum website features a wealth of resources and classroom activities related to the bombing.

Technorati Tags:
bomb, bombing, curriculum, history, learn, oklahoma, school, video, interview

Did you know Oklahoma is home to a growing black bear population and just had its first open hunting season for bears this year? Brad Hill used photos from his own game camera to create the 1 min, 17 second video, “Bears of Leflore County.”

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

When you think of tar pits, you might think of southern California and La Brea. You also should think of Lawton, Oklahoma! Alba Dissinger used her own photos to create and share the video “Fort Sill Tar Pit” to tell about this unique archeological site in Oklahoma.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Do you know the bison herd in Western Oklahoma in the Wichita Mountains was repopulated thanks to several bison sent from New York and the Bronx Zoo? These facts and many more are shared by Sydney Perry in her video, “Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.” Sidney used the free website drop.io to have friend and refuge docent Katherine Hunt narrate this six minute video using her cell phone!

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Kacey Kinsey leads a Girls’ Circle each week in the after-school program at her school, and it continues to make a HUGE difference in the lives of students who participate. Her video “Girls Circle” tells this story, including the voices of her students.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

What’s the longest marriage you’ve heard of? Michelle LeAnn Slay’s grandparents have been married for 70 years! Michelle used iMovie along with Audacity to create the touching video, “70 Years of Love and Marriage” during our COV workshop this week.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Isn’t it amazing to see the creative and powerful media messages Oklahoma educators can craft in an intensive, 2.5 day workshop on digital storytelling?! All these videos and more (494 in all, as of this writing) are available for FREE and OPEN access in our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices online learning community. Our collaborative storytelling efforts continue! Great work, Oklahoma educators!

Technorati Tags:
celebrate, digital, digitalstorytelling, history, marriage, oklahoma, story, storytelling, travel, voice, voices, geography, bear, bears, leflore, howe, wildlife, bison, mountains, celebration

“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

The Five Fighting Starrs of Oklahoma tells the amazing story of Paul Starr’s grandfather and five of his sons who all fought in World War II. Each returned to the United States (most to Oklahoma) to raise families and enjoy the freedom they had fought to hard to give and preserve to/for others. This video reminds me of Hollywood movies “Saving Private Ryan” and the TV miniseries “Band of Brothers.” Remarkable stories like this are often right in our own neighborhoods and households. Paul did a great job sharing this tale, and is enthused to be able to share it with the two remaining Starr brothers who are still alive, as well as other members of his family at an upcoming family reunion this fall.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

“Not that Depressing at All” is Jett Pilcher’s story of his relatives who chose to leave Oklahoma during the great depression and become labled as “Okies,” but returned to northeastern Oklahoma to get away from California city life and return to the land they knew and loved. Jett did a great job in this video interspersing his own narration with interview audio recorded with his mom. The use of original family photos really enhances the impact of Jett’s story and video.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

“East meets West” is Christina Conley’s story of her mother from Taiwan who met and married her father, a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, when he was serving there during the 1950s in the U.S. Navy.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Christina brought an entire suitcase of old, family photos to our COV workshop on day 2, and found the family photos she used in her video among them!

“Our piece of the puzzle” by Danielle Williams tells the touching story of how her family has dealt with the diagnosis of autism. This video particularly struck a chord with me because of the continuing work my wife is doing with an autism support group for families in Edmond, where we live. Danielle did a great job sharing her story as well as her heart in this video. When teachers in our COV workshops share their videos at the end of the workshop, I think it often becomes a powerful time of bonding and sharing. It’s not every day we have opportunities to see deeply into the lives and hearts of our co-workers, and the COV project provides that opportunity in many cases when educators choose to share issues near and dear to them through media.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

“From Fight To Flight” is another parent perspective story from educator Crystal Coppedge. The video is inspirational because of the way her son has dealt with Aspergers Syndrome and refused to let this diagnosis define him in the eyes of others or to himself. It is SO important we help students understand the importance of respecting others and seeing that everyone does not walk in the same footprints that we do ourselves. Digital video can be used powerfully to help us see the world through others’ eyes, and gain a bit more insight into worldviews as well as challenges which may be quite different from our own.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Great work, teachers in Kansas, Oklahoma!

Technorati Tags:
cov, family, kansas, oklahoma, stories, story, storytelling, taiwan, veteran, video, war, world, autism, aspergers, ii, navy, cherokee, marriage

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

Renee personifies the concept of a “digital witness” in this video because she powerfully communicated with images and audio the experiences, emotions, and observations she made when she personally witnessed the inauguration of President Barack Obama. As humans, our brains are wired for stories. When we hear someone tell a story like this about their own life, particularly when they draw deeply upon their own background experiences and life history in reflecting on the event, the resulting story can be an extremely memorable anecdote we may carry with us for a long time. Renee added music from the actual event to her video as well, to further communicate the sounds and emotions of President Obama’s inauguration day.

Several of the ideas and phrases Renee shared in this video were also quoted in the February 6, 2009, Hugo Daily News article, “Mrs. Hall Goes to Washington.” These are some of her quotations from her interview with a local Hugo reporter.

My husband and my birthdays are on Jan. 18, and 19, so we usually try to do something… So he said ‘let’s go to the inauguration.’ Well, I had thought about it back in November and so we thought it would be something fun to go to. We just decided that we couldn’t miss this event…. We lived through segregation, segregated schools, separate water fountains and the whole bit… So we never thought we would see this day. This is just something that you really didn’t think was possible. You didn’t think we had evolved as far as the hope of Martin Luther King. That is what really drove us to want to go… We went to a special event at the Smithsonian on the Monday before the inauguration. The event was in honor of Martin Luther King. At the very end of the program we all joined hands and sang ‘We Shall Overcome.’ While this was going on, I looked around at all the people –– young, old, black, white –– with tears in their eyes singing that song. There was a feeling of overpowering love and unity there among all the people… We lived through a generation where we had to walk around with downcast eyes… In the old days, my great-grandparents, who were slaves, would be killed just for looking a white person in the eyes. To be able to lift your eyes as Obama lifted his hand to take the oath, he lifted the hopes of a lot of people. Young people now know that with hard work and sacrifice, the American Dream is possible… I certainly never thought that I would live to see a black man become President of the United States… So the expectations have been raised. And a lot of kids are looking up to this man because he has achieved something that we did not think he would be able to achieve. He raised the hopes of many Americans and showed us that the things that are promised in the Constitution are meant for all of us. This gives our young people something to hope for… Black people alone make up a small percentage of people in this country… So we are not the ones that put Obama in office. So just to know that the world is changing from the way it was and it is evolving into that great nation that it was always meant to be. We are living up to those ideals that the forefathers had in mind… The whole event was truly inspiring… It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I will never forget it. I will be able to tell my grandson when he is studying, that I was there and I witnessed this event.

If you have created or seen other videos like this which exemplify someone being a “digital witness,” as Rene Hall was here, please consider adding it to the StoryChasers blog. You can register as a guest blogger, and after review your submitted post will be approved to be published.

As a non-profit organization, Storychasers wants to amplify and share constructive examples of “digital witnesses” using video, audio, images, and text to record and share personal perspectives about history, current events, and everyday living. As of this writing in August 2009, over four hundred videos created by Oklahoma teachers and students are available on the “Celebrate Oklahoma Voices” learning community. Many of these short films fit this definition of a “digital witness” video. In upcoming weeks we’ll be asking COV project facilitators to join our Storychasers’s blog and share some of their favorite COV video examples. If you haven’t yet subscribed and added Storychasers to your Google Reader (or other feed reader / aggregator) please do! While the primary project currently sponsored by Storychasers focuses specifically on Oklahoma, as an organization we have a national / international focus and do not / will not focus exclusively on digital storytelling and being a “digital witness” only in a single state or region.

Technorati Tags:
celebrate, cov, digital, hugo, obama, oklahoma, video, voices, inauguration, witness, digitalwitness