StoryCorps

I haven’t spent much time listening to StoryCorps, but what I’ve heard has really impressed me, like the Minneapolis story about a woman who befriends her son’s murderer or the North Carolina story about a man who volunteers to attend college with a boy from his church who is a quadriplegic . This morning, I discovered that StoryCorps recently came out with an app. Cool!

Here’s the description:

The StoryCorps app—a free mobile application—seamlessly walks users through an interview by providing all the necessary tools for a wonderful experience. You will receive help preparing questions, finding the right environment for your conversation, recording a high-quality interview on your mobile device, sharing the finished product with friends and family, and uploading your conversation to the StoryCorps.me website.

StoryCorps.me

I love this idea of giving people a tool for listening to others’ stories. Not only does the app provide the platform, but it also educates the user on how to listen to and interview others. I’m looking forward to trying it.

Storytelling through/with Maps

I’m fascinated by the use of maps for telling stories and I’d like to experiment with them in my own storytelling, especially on my big Farm project. As a way to get me experimenting, I’m tentatively planning on working with my daughter RJP to tell one story of our Utah trip through an interactive map/maps.

Why Maps?

They provide a nice contrast to my imaginative renderings of space as symbolic place. Plus, they offer other ways to “tell” stories about land: it’s elevation, degree of isolation, proximity to home

As I’ve been researching interactive documentary tools, I’ve encountered a few different tools/platforms for map storytelling:

1. STORY MAPS

Story maps combine interactive maps and multimedia content into elegant user experiences. They make it easy for you to harness the power of maps to tell your stories.

2. ODYSSEY

Odyssey.js is an open-source tool that allows you to combine maps, narratives, and other multimedia into a beautiful story. Creating new stories is simple, requiring nothing more than a modern web-browser and an idea. You enhance the narrative and multimedia of your stories using Actions (e.g. map movements, video and sound control, or the display or new content) that will let you tell your story in an exciting new way. Use our Templates to control the overall look and feel of your story in beautifully designed layouts.

3. AESOP STORY ENGINE MAP COMPONENT

The Map component creates a full-width map with custom location markers, including the option for the map to follow you as you scroll down the post.

Now I have two days to figure out which of these to use!?