Workshop aims to train students in digital tools to tell their stories

A touring workshop in digital storytelling is visiting communities in the Northwest Territories in hopes that students will share their stories and culture with a global audience.

The workshops are part of an education initiative between Western Arctic Moving Pictures and Montreal-based Hands on Media.

"It's amazing, I was just doing a workshop with some Inuit youth in Ottawa, and now they want to do [stories] on their own language and culture and really getting inspired to keep on creating," says Jessie Curell, the workshop's lead instructor.

She says she wants students to become "media literate" and have the skills to tell stories about issues they face.

"It's really important to recognize the power of our own communities where we are; the knowledge that's around us all the time."

Students will learn filmmaking, photography, sound recording and are expected to create short films on smartphones, laptops and iPads.

"At its root, making a movie is really fun," Curell says.

"There's no more powerful way to share information than with a combination of audio and visual."

Andree Amirault, a Grade 5-8 teacher at Kaw Tay Whee School in Dettah — the first stop on the tour — said her students "really like it."

"They're getting the hang of it," she said. "I think they're really going to enjoy the storyboarding and seeing how it all comes together at the end."

The digital storytelling tour will also travel to Whati, Inuvik, Deline, Fort Simpson and Fort Smith in the coming weeks.