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storyworlds

Ringing in 2020 with Storytelling and Digital Media Courses at BCIT

January 1, 2020 by Erica Hargreave Leave a Comment

As we ring in a new year, it had me reflecting on what is important to me, and this old proverb …

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

Photographed by Cristian Palmer, care of Unsplash.

There is no greater gift that you can give yourself or another than learning a skill that helps pursue one’s passions. This is the reason why sharing knowledge is an important part of what we aim to do here with StoryToGo.

The Importance of Sharing Knowledge For Us

When I started speaking in 2008 about bridging the worlds of media, interactive and cross-platform storytelling, and digital media, it occurred to me that while inspiring people through my talks was great and all, to truly help people to take action, they needed a course giving them guidance and support while they build and craft their storyworlds.

Interactive Storytelling
Erica Hargreave and Caitlin Burns on a Panel on Convergent Storytelling.
Photographer: Liz Kearsley

A year later, after pitching the local post secondary schools, my first post-secondary school courses launched at BCIT and Capilano University. Since then my team and I have also built courses and workshops and taught community, undergraduate and graduate courses at Ryerson University, Humber College, and NVIT. In addition, we’ve helped build new programs and revise old programs. It has both been an honour to teach and share with others, and fulfills a passion of ours. We love teaching.

Creating Our Courses Online

In 2011, after speaking in Egypt, we recognized that to truly make a difference to people that could most benefit from our courses, we needed them to be available online.

Erica Hargreave speaking on ‘Real Time’ Storytelling at the UNWTO Conference on Working with Media in Challenging Times in Marsa Alam, Egypt.

Thanks to BCIT and our colleague Kevin Ribble, they were by 2013. This has also allowed Lori Yearwood to help build and teach those courses with me.

2020 Courses at BCIT

I am happy to share that as we move into 2020, we now have 2 online post-secondary credited courses and 2 intensive community courses offered through BCIT’s Broadcast Media and Communications Part Time Studies. All of our courses are project based, in which our students come out of them having built or built upon projects of their own that they are crafting for their future endeavours.

For those of you who are looking to give yourself and someone in your life the gift of learning this year, these are a few of the courses that we will be teaching in 2020:

  • BCST 1073 – Building Your Digital Media Presence (an online, work on your own schedule each week, course starting in January)
  • BCST 1193 – Social Media Storytelling (an online, work on your own schedule each week, course scheduled to be offered in April)
  • BCST 0107 – Travel Writing: Your Journey from Branding to Monetizing your Travel Stories (stay tuned for a Summer intensive course offering)
  • BCST 0108 – Creating and Marketing your Own Web Series (stay tuned for a Summer intensive course offering)
Photographed by Ian Schneider, care of Unsplash.

More Coming on StoryToGo

Also keep your eyes peeled here as we will be launching the StoryToGo Classroom site later this year with mini online courses, and tailored online and blended courses for organizations from us and our rich group of storytelling friends and colleagues.

If you have a course that you would love to see offered through StoryToGo, please let us know in the comments, and if you wish us to tailor create a course for your organization, please send us an email.

Photographed by by Danielle Macinnes, care of Unsplash.

Raising a glass of whatever your preferred beverage to a happy and rewarding new year and new decade, rich in learning!

Filed Under: #StoryToGo, Courses, Events, Instructor News, Our Community Tagged With: BCIT, storytelling, storyworlds

TEDx Warsaw: Erica Speaks on Immersive Storyworlds

September 8, 2015 by Lori Yearwood Leave a Comment

Erica Hargreave speaking at TEDxWarsaw

The title of Erica Hargreave‘s TEDx Warsaw talk, Permission to be the Other, couldn’t have been more perfect! She playfully spoke to a captivated audience about how to create immersive storyworlds by first allowing yourself to be creative and enter the minds of different characters. Take a glimpse into her brand of storytelling.

Erica is one of the World’s trailblazers in digital and transmedia storytellers, especially when it comes to bringing characters to life. She has been creating cross-platform media and immersive storyworlds before she knew there were terms for what she was doing. Currently her work is also directed at empowering students to create their own storyworlds at post-secondary schools in Canada. These courses are available online through BCIT to anyone in the World. You can learn more about them here: BCST 1193 – Social Media Storytelling and BCST 1073 – Building and Engaging Communities.

If you’d like to see more TEDx Talks from Erica, let TEDx know by filling in this form.

Filed Under: #StoryToGo, Instructor News, Our Community Tagged With: character storytelling, cross-platform media, Erica Hargreave, immersive storyworlds, storyworlds, TEDx, transmedia

Revisiting Storyworlds from Your Childhood Self

February 10, 2015 by Erica Hargreave Leave a Comment

This article was originally published in Reel West Magazine, and was republished here to archive it, after the close of the magazine.

These days there’s always a new buzz word when it comes to storytelling and technology. Admittedly these usually make me groan, as, as they gain in popularity, they bring with them the so-called gurus and prophets, who spend more time talking about them tha they do actually creating. Part of my eye rolling comes with the fact that by the time it’s a buzz word, and people are dropping it left, right and centre in conversation, it is no longer cutting edge and people start over using it (if I never hear the word ‘selfie’ again, I will be one happy gal). Oh and please stop using the term ‘new media’. It stopped being ‘new’ ages ago. Then there’s the infighting between groups of media makers – using different terms for the same thing, as they aren’t fans of some of the ‘so called prophets’ – really are transmedia and convergent storytelling all that different? But mostly I cringe at these terms and the posturing to be seen as a leader of them as none of these terms describe new concepts. Think about it.  The only thing new to storytelling are a few of the platforms in which we tell our tales on now, but conceptually people have been doing things like transmedia and convergent storytelling all throughout human history.  We’ve just become a little precious about spotlighting ourselves as trail blazers.

One term that you may have heard if you’ve been attending conferences like Storyworld Quest, Merging Media, and Storyworld, that is becoming a buzz word with media makers is ‘storyworlds’ or ‘storyworld creation’. This is one term that admittedly I love, but again is not new.  The concept of storyworlds is the idea of having stories that overlap with each other, that have different platforms in which people can experience aspects of the story on and allow the audience to engage within the story and take a personal stake in it.

I suspect most of you at some point have created a storyworld as children.  One that standouts for me from childhood was created by my siblings, cousins and myself at my grandparent’s place. This storyworld involved our rooftop ‘Dairy Queen’ (which was a place of imaginative play and theatre – rather than ice cream), another rooftop Star Wars play zone (for creating our own brand of fan fiction), magical beasts (as we watched the shoreline for the Cadborosaurus), mysteries to be solved (in the form of a coy pinching otter), our own Olympic Summer Games resided over by my grandfather in top hat and tails (for our gaming component), the ‘how-to’ project of the tree fort we were constantly rebuilding, and our own foodie adventures in homemade fruit leather creations.  

Think about it.  I bet you too can remember storyworlds that you were a part of as a child.

So what is that magical ingredient that makes some people more successful in creating storyworlds, than others, in this age of social and mobile media?  Building community!  This means engaging, listening, empowering others to feel a part of the story and engage within it, and letting go of the reigns and not trying to control everything.  As media makers, this means remembering that lesson we learned in Kindergarten – it’s not all about us!  While you can still broadcast – also ENGAGE – let your audience feel they have a stake in your story and it’s success. And remember we can’t do it all alone – just like I needed my cousins, siblings, and adult family members to help create that childhood storyworld, you need to build community – both within your audience and with other creatives – and allow them to take a stake within your story, without micromanaging and trying to control everything.

Give yourself permission to embrace the kid in you again and begin building storyworlds around your projects.  Once you do, please tell us about it at @AhimsaMedia or via the #StoryToGo hashtag, and invite us into your storyworld.

Filed Under: #StoryToGo, Case Studies Tagged With: storyworlds

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#StoryToGo is a community designed to reflect storytelling today – shared both through traditional means of oral storytelling, radio, film and TV, and print; in addition to newer forms of media storytelling through the digital arts, including gaming, blogging, online video, and social media.

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BCIT Media Storytelling Courses

Our Post-Secondary Accredited Courses with BCIT's Media Storytelling Department:

Building Your Digital Media Presence (online)

Social Media Storytelling (online)

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