Exciting collaboration with The Making of Black Britain

On the 21st of April, the CERTIFY project UK team delivered the first of a series of multiplier events organised in collaboration with the very prestigious UK-wide initiative The Making of Black Britain, led by TV and Radio presenter Diane Louise Jordan (here in the photo with the illustrator Karen Sung during the first workshop in London).

MoBB London Karen&Diane

Participants had the opportunity to go through the key steps of the Digital Storytelling process, as described in the CERTIFY Handbook, including script writing, storyboarding, audio and video recording. 

The card game was one of the tools that revealed to be the most easy to use to stimulate conversations.

The filmmaker Abdi Cadani also joined the first workshop and showed participants how to create and record a voiceover to be combined with a video-portrait (a very interesting technique applied on this occasion).

A screening of all the stories produced will be organised with all the participants to the various events organised as part of this hopefully long-lasting collaboration with The Making of Black Britain.

TV and Radio broadcaster Diane Louise Jordan has served UK audiences and communities for over 30 years. With family at her core, Diane’s influence reaches beyond any colour, class, creed or generation with her mission to seek always to understand.

In 1990 Diane made front page news as the first black presenter of BBC1’s legendary Blue Peter. Diane has hosted many iconic British programmes, including BBC1’s Songs of Praise, and BBC Radio Two’s long running The Sunday Hour.

Diane has dedicated the last three years to creating legacy through her oral history archive The Making of Black Britain, which recently launched on Google Arts and Culture, exploring what it means to be British, giving the people of Britain the chance to Speak, Listen, Belong.

Creative Manifestation!

A CERTIFY workshop organised by Loughborough University’s Storytelling Academy and the Young Artist Collective in Derby, UK.

CERTIFY Final Multiplier Event in UK

Friday 22nd April
Artcore Community Hub, Charnwood St,
DE1 2GT
Book your place through this link!

About the Workshop:

Join our team from Artcore and Loughborough University’s Storytelling Academy for this relaxed and thought-provoking workshop surrounding the themes of self-reflection, manifestation and collaboration!
This Zine-Making workshop is aimed at emerging creatives, and those who want to reflect on their journey and experience in arts.

Take a look at the Storytelling Academy here: https://storytellingacademy.education/

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Ready for your dream job?

SPES is hosting the final CERTIFY multiplier event in conjunction to the project last team meeting.

CERTIFY Multiplier Event in Austria

What are the future competences in the world of work and how can they be made visible in job applications?
What skills should applicants have for their future job? What skills do companies need?
Together we will collect ideas: How do I apply for a job and how can I present my competences well?
We show new ways to apply for a job and present great tools and materials. Discover the educational app, examples of digital video applications and manuals we developed as part of the Certify project.

Join the conversation with Antonia Liguori from Loughborough University England, Mathy Vanbuel and Dovile Dudenaite from ATiT Belgium, Siegfried Pramhas District Office Manager of WKO Kirchdorf, Günther Schmied deputy head of AMS Kirchdorf.

SPES Zukunftsakademie
Projektassistenz

SPES GmbH
Panoramaweg 1, 4553 Schlierbach
Telefon: +43 (0)7582 82123-71
Web: http://www.spes.co.at
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SPESZukunftsakademie

   We look forward to seeing you!

A CERTIFY Workshop at the NAWE Conference 2022

Antonia Liguori and Alison Mott, from the Storytelling Academy, Loughborough University, UK, shared the CERTIFY digital storytelling message with delegates from across the globe at the conference of the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE).

Based in the UK but linked to partner-organisations across the world, NAWE is a subject association which promotes creative writing as both a distinct discipline and an essential element in education in general. 

The organisation promotes good practice in delivering creative writing activities in schools, community contexts and Higher Education, and provides advice, support and training opportunities for the writers, writing teachers and other literature professionals who make up its membership. 

As such, then, its annual conference – delivered online again this year – was an unmissable opportunity to raise awareness of Digital Storytelling and its usefulness for building capacity across a range of themes, including those of renewal and resilience on which the conference focused.

Antonia and Alison had time to give delegates a flavour of the steps followed in a regular Digital Storytelling workshop and showcased the e-learning platform and the card game created as part of the CERTIFY project.

Please, scan the QR codes to access our resources and enjoy creating your digital story!

CERTIFY Learning Platform
CERTIFY Card game

CERTIFY DIGITAL STORYTELLING WORKSHOP IN LEUVEN, BELGIUM

On Friday 4th of March, Antonia Liguori, from the Storytelling Academy, Loughborough University, UK, and Dovile Dudenaite, ATiT, Belgium, will present the CERTIFY learning tools and game for the assessment of soft skills, during a short event at 14:00 or at 16:00 in Flanders DC, Diestsevest 76, 3000 Leuven.

If you’re looking for a job in the creative sector or if you are involved with teaching and training young people and in helping them to build their soft skills especially for application in their professional careers, then this event is for you.

You are cordially invited for an introduction on Digital Storytelling as a tool to (self)assess soft skills followed by a Storyboarding session, both lead by Prof. Antonia Liguori, Senior Lecturer in Applied Storytelling, School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, UK. Finally, Dovile Dudenaite from ATiT, Belgium, will present the eLearning platform and the card game, both resources to help young jobseekers to express soft skills in their job applications.

Due to the Covid-19 measures we will be organising two sessions of 90 minutes each, one at 14:00 and one at 16:00. Please register now for free (places are limited) by sending an email with your name, email address, organisation and preferred time slot (14:00 or 16:00) to register@atit.be. Participation is free.

The Digital Storytelling workshop is a creative practice that allows participants to reflect on the uniqueness of their personal experiences and to learn how to translate these into a short video in which images, sound and a voiceover are combined to tell an impactful first person narrative. This versatile approach has been successfully applied in formal and non-formal education, participatory research and audience engagement. The research findings from CERTIFY are the foundation for a storyboarding session and to share a story about a personal experience that has enhanced creativity, critical thinking, ability to communicate and the attitude to collaborate with people from different backgrounds. Finally, we present a free online learning programme and an online card game (both in 5 languages), All outcomes are part of the EU funded project CERTIFY (https://certifyproject.com/), aimed at creating tools to assess and enhance soft skills to help jobseekers in the Cultural and Creative sectors.

The workshop will be facilitated by:

Prof. Antonia LIGUORI is Senior Lecturer in Applied Storytelling, School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, UK.Antonia Liguori
Dovile DUDENAITE is communications and project officer at ATiT, Belgium.

CERTIFY at the INTED Conference 2021

Every year, INTED – International Technology, Learning and Development Conference has had over 700 participants from more than 80 different countries. INTED2021 was held virtually on the 8th and 9th of March 2021. Authors were able to share their abstracts, papers and virtual presentations (slides, videos and posters) and open them for discussion. Additionally, INTED participants had access to different on-line activities, keynote speeches, webinars and workshops that were delivered through Zoom platform. Also, different text-based chat channels were available to allow authors and attendees discuss their presentations and materials.

Dr Antonia Liguori, Loughborough University, on behalf of the CERTIFY team, gave a presentation on ‘Digital Storytelling as a tool to self-assess and enhance soft skills: analysing the CERTIFY Project as case study‘. Her contribution will be included in the IATED Digital Library to form part of a database of innovative projects in Education and Technology. This publication will be submitted for evaluation for its inclusion in Web of Science (Conference Proceedings Citation Index) as it has been annually done since 2010.

Online training workshop for international trainees

A screenshot of the intro page of the CERTIFY Digital Storytelling Handbook

Despite the current restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 16 trainees from the 6 European partners’ countries, 12 months after the first Learning mobility in the UK at the end of 2019, on Wednesday 16th December 2020 had the opportunity to kick-off online their second training activity.

Online training with participants from the 6 partners’ countries.

The training event was led by Dr Antonia Liguori from the Storytelling Academy at Loughborough University and focused on various elements of the Digital Storytelling process with the aim to co-produce part of the contents for the CERTIFY Handbook.

In particular, participants have explored the following questions:

Why is Digital Storytelling good for employment?

How to develop prompts to run a DS workshop on a specific skill (such as creativity, collaboration, flexibility, self-management)?

How to give specific feedback on stories for each individual skill?

CERTIFY training participants sharing ideas on padlet.

At the end of this first intense and very positive online session, it was agreed that trainees will work in sub-groups to focus on one specific skill and run online digital storytelling workshops for the production of stories that will be shared to the whole group on the 11th of February.

The groups are organised as specified below:

Austria and Greece will work on Flexibility;

the two teams from Italy (Istituto Luigi Sturzo and Siena Art Institute) will work on collaboration;

Belgium and Lithuania on self-management;

the two teams from the UK (Loughborough and DeMontfort University) on creativity.

We hope to have the opportunity to complete the training in person in Rome from the 19th to the 23rd of April.

CERTIFY Workshops in UK: Digital Storytelling about skills for the cultural sector

Loughborough University PhD student and CERTIFY trainee Sophia Kier-Byfield is organising the first two Digital Storytelling workshops in UK as part of the EU project CERTIFY.

The two workshops are open to young adults and adults who would like to learn how to make a digital story that could be used as additional evidence when they apply for a job in the cultural and creative sector.

During the first online workshop in this three-session, (16th-18th Nov) participants will be focusing on the skills of creativity and collaboration. Using the Digital Storytelling method, they will be invited to create a story that shows their experience with and understanding of these skills through a personal story.

Click here to register to this first event: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/certify-digital-storytelling-about-skills-for-the-cultural-sector-tickets-125314654505

During the second workshop (24th-26th Nov), participants will be focusing on the skills of flexibility/resilience and self-management.

Click here to register to the second event: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/certify-digital-storytelling-about-skills-for-the-cultural-sector-tickets-125443417639

Digital Stories are 2-4 minutes long and convey personal narratives about powerful moments through a combination of words and images. By taking part in the method and creating a digital story, participants will have an opportunity to reflect on their skills from a fresh perspective, learn something new through the process, and be part of a group of supportive and inquisitive storytellers.

The digital stories created during the workshop will be featured on the project’s website and will contribute to research about if and how the digital storytelling method can be used to amplify the skills needed to work in the cultural sector.

On the CERTIFY project website, you can watch some of the stories produced by other workshops participants: https://certifyproject.com/digital-stories/

Good progress during our team meeting “in” Belgium

Despite the current travel restrictions due to the impact of COVID-19, the CERTIFY project team decided not to postpone the meeting in Belgium and to hold it online.

There were, in fact, many issues that the team had to discuss as a group and for a longer time than the usual monthly online catch-up meetings.

The CERTIFY Project Team on Zoom during what was supposed to be their meeting in Belgium.

Very good progress was made on all the Intellectual Outputs currently in development, and in particular on the Research Report, now ready for translations in its short version.

Lucia Colonna, a researcher from Luigi Sturzo Institute, presented the Output in its final draft and shared very interesting results extracted from the surveys, the interviews and the 6 national contexts.

The conceptual map of the survey.

The Report will be shortly available to download from our Project Outputs webpage.

The virtual environment had some positives too: in fact, the team had the pleasure to work again with Dr Lyndsey Bakewell (in the group photo with baby Wren), from De Montfort University, during one of her “keep in touch” days while still on maternity leave.