News

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 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.

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/

ATiT hosted the second project team meeting

In the past few weeks, the CERTIFY project team have been re-scheduling a variety of activities due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our way of working and living.

The second project team meeting was supposed to be hosted by the Luigi Sturzo Institute in Rome, during the second week of May, in conjunction with the second international training mobility involving a group of 16 adult learners. The partners agreed to postpone both the meeting and the training event in Rome to the Autumn, and decided to replace the face-to-face team meeting with an online meeting virtually ‘hosted’ by the partner from Belgium ATiT.

During the two-day online meeting, all partners were actively involved in fruitful discussions to plan how to proceed in the development of the planned intellectual outputs, starting from the completion of the Research Report on the state of art of the recruiting system in the cultural and creative sectors in the six partner countries, that will include also a comparison of the skills acquired through the completion of the formal education systems with those required by the cultural and creative labour market in each country.

Working on the Research Report during the online project team meeting

Two sub-groups were formed to coordinate the production of the following outputs:

– ATiT, supported by Loughborough University, De Montfort University and VsI “Lyderystes ir verslo akademija”, will take the lead on the development of a mobile application to create Digital ‘curricular’ stories and of the e-learning platform;

– Loughborough University, supported by Siena Art Institute and SPES GMBH, will work together to create an agile Handbook for the creation of Digital ‘curricular’ stories.

Luigi Sturzo Institute, supported by Research Paths, will keep working together to finalise the Research Report that will be published by the end of June.

During the meeting the team was delighted to welcome the youngest member of our CERTIFY European family, the one-month-old beautiful Wren. Congratulations to our wonderful colleague Lyndsey Bakewell and her partner David Smith!

Online the CERTIFY Survey in 6 languages

Within the CERTIFY project we are undertaking a survey in order to:

Map the state of art of the recruiting system in the cultural and creative sectors in six partner countries, including Italy, United Kingdom, Greece, Austria, Lithuania and Belgium.
Compare the skills acquired through the completion of the formal education systems with those required by the cultural and creative labour market in each country.

The project will utilise this data to develop a range of tools and training programmes designed to aid the recognition of transversal skills and key competences, considering how to better use them in the job-seeking process.

The survey has been translated in all partners’ languages and is now open.

Please, see below the links by Country:

Austria:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=wE8mz7iun0SQVILORFQIS0TPOGtoio1MoU_nVouhK8RUQUdCQ1BOM1k0VzFLTUpVWFY1WFREU1kwUy4u

Lithuania:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=wE8mz7iun0SQVILORFQIS0TPOGtoio1MoU_nVouhK8RUOVZIMEtIOTY4U0o3STU0MUdRNDJKU0RKMS4u

Greece:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=wE8mz7iun0SQVILORFQIS0TPOGtoio1MoU_nVouhK8RUN0U5Uk9CVzdISUk0QTYzMlA0RlpOSUUwRy4u

Italy:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=wE8mz7iun0SQVILORFQIS0TPOGtoio1MoU_nVouhK8RUN1pBOU4zREJYNEREUjBZQ1g2Q0xUNzBNVy4u

Belgium:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=wE8mz7iun0SQVILORFQIS0TPOGtoio1MoU_nVouhK8RUQlM3TkNOOUw4VEcxRjcxNEZIU1ZIUkwzNS4u

UK:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=wE8mz7iun0SQVILORFQIS0TPOGtoio1MoU_nVouhK8RUMVNUOVdBU1U4OEhYTTA4SkJJWkVXMUNFVy4u

Digital Storytelling Training in UK

20 participants from 7 European Countries will be involved in the first training mobility of the CERTIFY Project from Monday the 16th of December to Friday the 20th.

Dr Antonia Liguori (Lecturer in Applied Storytelling at Loughborough University and PI on the project) and Dr Lyndsey Bakewell (Lecturer in Drama and Co-I from De Montfort University) will facilitate a 5-day Digital Storytelling training workshop aimed at sharing this creative practice with two adult learners from each country involved in the project.

The CERTIFY project seeks to help individuals wanting to work in the Cultural and Creative sectors, considered to be a sector for investment by the European Commission, by developing and testing a new methodology based on digital tools for people to identify and recognise their transversal skills, as identified in the 2020 strategy.

All participants will be involved in another training activity in May so to be able to then deliver themselves Digital Storytelling workshops in their own country.

The digital stories produced will be included in a collection of open educational resources and new intellectual outputs for adult education.

Loughborough University hosted the CERTIFY kick-off meeting

With the kick-off meeting hosted by Loughborough University on the 4th and the 5th of November in their main campus in the Midlands, the CERTIFY project partners officially started to plan a series of activities that will include a Digital Storytelling training workshop in December and a Mentoring programme in May for a group of around 20 adult learners from 7 European Countries.

This project will help individuals wanting to work in the Cultural and Creative sectors by developing and testing a new methodology based on digital tools for people to identify and recognise their transversal skills, as identified in the 2020 strategy.

Watch out for news about the first training course being organised by the team on applied storytelling from 16 to 20 December.