Digital Storytelling as a Tool to Preserve the History of the Williamsport Black Community
Start Date
30-10-2016 10:30 AM
End Date
30-10-2016 12:00 PM
Description
During the spring 2016 semester, two professors from diverse educational backgrounds, a group of freshmen from all over the United States, and 15 African American community members from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, came together to create a digital archive of stories documenting the history of the Black community of Lycoming County. Digital storytelling is a specific process combining storytelling with modern-day technology and digital media based on participants’ own experiences and told through their own perspectives. Participants’ voices are recorded and integrated with photographs, letters, home videos, etc. The stories focus on the point of view/voice of the storyteller and value the power of story as a tool for self-discovery and reflection, community building and education, organizing and advocacy. Through this interactive presentation, we will demonstrate how we used digital storytelling to increase knowledge and understanding of this mainly undocumented community history. The presenters will share the process used in this collaborative project. We will talk about some of the challenges presented by the project, as well as the successful outcome — the creation of digitalized stories of the life stories of members of the diverse African American community. The final stories were presented at a public screening and will be available to the public through the Lycoming County Historical Society, the Lycoming County Women’s History Collection and the Heart of Williamsport Project. The presenters will discuss the value of a first year seminar that connects students from Lycoming College to the local community. The relationships formed between the Lycoming College students and their community members were lifelong partnerships, as shared by a student and her community partner who will share their story as part of our presentation. The first year seminar course had three main parts — creation of the student’s own digital stories, learning about the history of Lycoming County and its African American community, and the collaborative effort by students and community member teams to create a series of historical stories about the local Black community. Community members shared photographs, correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, newspaper stories, and in some instances, rare secondary sources and students created 3-5 minute digital stories about some aspect of their partners’ lives and community.
Type
Presentation
Session
#s5b: Exploring Community through Digital Scholarship, moderator Andrew Stuhl
Language
eng
Location
Elaine Langone Center, 241
Digital Storytelling as a Tool to Preserve the History of the Williamsport Black Community
Elaine Langone Center, 241
During the spring 2016 semester, two professors from diverse educational backgrounds, a group of freshmen from all over the United States, and 15 African American community members from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, came together to create a digital archive of stories documenting the history of the Black community of Lycoming County. Digital storytelling is a specific process combining storytelling with modern-day technology and digital media based on participants’ own experiences and told through their own perspectives. Participants’ voices are recorded and integrated with photographs, letters, home videos, etc. The stories focus on the point of view/voice of the storyteller and value the power of story as a tool for self-discovery and reflection, community building and education, organizing and advocacy. Through this interactive presentation, we will demonstrate how we used digital storytelling to increase knowledge and understanding of this mainly undocumented community history. The presenters will share the process used in this collaborative project. We will talk about some of the challenges presented by the project, as well as the successful outcome — the creation of digitalized stories of the life stories of members of the diverse African American community. The final stories were presented at a public screening and will be available to the public through the Lycoming County Historical Society, the Lycoming County Women’s History Collection and the Heart of Williamsport Project. The presenters will discuss the value of a first year seminar that connects students from Lycoming College to the local community. The relationships formed between the Lycoming College students and their community members were lifelong partnerships, as shared by a student and her community partner who will share their story as part of our presentation. The first year seminar course had three main parts — creation of the student’s own digital stories, learning about the history of Lycoming County and its African American community, and the collaborative effort by students and community member teams to create a series of historical stories about the local Black community. Community members shared photographs, correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, newspaper stories, and in some instances, rare secondary sources and students created 3-5 minute digital stories about some aspect of their partners’ lives and community.