Transforming Moments with Stories

For the past 15 years, I've been listening to storytellers like Christian Payne weave emotion into narratives. I've worked alongside Pamela O'Brien with dozens of young people on the Youth Media Team as they captured stories while interviewing people at events. I expect to bring part of what I've learned into a workshop during the ICT in Education Conference in Thurles as I show teachers how Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses can bring a storyteller right into the middle of a scene.

Creative Transformation #ictedu24

The annual ICT in Education Conference follows the theme of "Creative Transformation" in 2024, fortified by a keynote speech by Mary Loftus and a spirited panel discussion led by Conor Galvin . During the day, I will help Dylan (the 12yo in the above photo) doorstep a dozen attendees as he tries to see if there's a new favorite place for teachers to connect online now that Twitter has lost its sheen of trust and safety. He also wants to see if he can bring back to his teachers some of the ideas teachers share about creatively transforming classroom activities. Several attendees have already suggested clever ideas with AI tools.

If done right, the short audio and video clips will make easy watching as a recap of the day-long event. The clips will be sprinkled around online spaces hashtagged #ictedu24.

Transformed by Documentally

Getting the right mix of information and congeniality is something I've heard and seen with Documentally's Dispatches. I've learned there are great returns when a presenter does high quality research. Oftentimes the researcher, producer, or booker can inject confidence into the flow of conversations that viewers get to see and hear when the recording finishes. I've watched members of the YMT.fm crew pull together notes before interviews and then ask their questions to people they've never met. The whole process is transformative--from idea, to research, to interview, to publishing. When it works, it's stellar creative transformation.

Some of this creative transformation appears on camera as Dylan the primary school student interviewed Amy O Sullivan in her local business. This video is the first to get more than 1000 plays in its first 24 hours online.

Interviewing Miss Ellie's

Using the trade secrets

Now that we know how well some of Documentally's Special Secrets work, we should be able to reach the same viewership with a show reel from the 2024 ICT in Education Conference.