Family and Community Oral History WorkshopS (October 2023)

Description

Unearth the untold stories in your family and community with this engaging workshop series, hosted as part of “Family History Month” in October 2023. This experience, led by Charlotte middle school teacher Wesley Fryer, is designed to stoke your inspiration and equip you with practical tools for initiating or enriching your own oral history projects.

Throughout both workshops, we'll delve into a multitude of real-world examples shared on the Storychasers website, maintained by Wesley. (www.storychasers.org/examples) You'll discover effective interview techniques, smart strategies for recording audio with a free smartphone app, and get the low-down on efficient (and free) audio editing software to polish your project. Moreover, we'll also guide you through the myriad of options for online publishing and sharing of your oral histories.

Our workshop is open to teenagers through adults of all experience levels, making it a perfect fit for anyone with an interest in storytelling — from educators interested in facilitating a student oral history project, to individuals passionate about preserving their unique family and community narratives.

Registration

Technical Requirements

These are BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) workshops, and will feature a variety of free smartphone apps as well as software programs compatible with Android as well as Apple / iOS smartphones, and with MacOS as well as WindowsOS computers. No prior experience with oral history or digital storytelling apps / software programs is required. Participants are encouraged to bring their own smartphone as well as laptop computer. The following free smartphone apps and software programs are recommended for participants to download and install PRIOR to the workshop.

1. Workshop 1: The Storycorps app and/or Spotify for Podcasters (iOS or Android)

2. Workshop 2: Audacity Software https://www.audacityteam.org 

1. examples and Steps

More Project Ideas and Examples

If you are:

1. in Scouting or just interested in a wonderful community service project, check out Alex Fryer's Eagle Project from October 2015.

2. a teacher, check out Wes' "Family Oral History Project" lesson series.

3. involved in church ministry, check out the chapter on "Audio Recording" from Wes' book, "Pocket Share Jesus: Become a Digital Witness for Christ."

2. Audio Stories

An "audio story" is a recorded audio interview, which may or may not be accompanied by a photo / image. Audio stories can be edited or unedited, and may be normalized.

More "Audio Story" examples are available on the main Storychasers.org "Examples page" and in this YouTube playlist.

3. Sharing Options

4. Audio Editing Options

A variety of apps and software programs are available to EDIT audio you record for an oral history interview. These include:

1. Twisted Wave Online (free, web-based, reference manual available)

2. Spotify for Podcasters (formerly "Anchor" - web-based and app-based for iOS / Android)

3. Audacity (free / open source - Requires laptop/desktop computer)