The Nobel Peace Prize Forum presents a rare opportunity to collect a wide variety of stories of peace in local communities. Mirroring the theme of the Forum, "Striving for Peace, Roots of Change," our digital storytelling format encourages participants to digitally record stories of their own inspirations in their own communities. Participants may browse other participants' stories via a computer kiosk, and may comment on them, recording their own stories, serving as seeds yet again for other stories.
The Digital Storytelling format has two goals: 1) to provide a format for communication and storytelling at a central public location, thus fostering additional interaction among participants and students, and 2) to provide a record of the event after the Forum has finished, in the form of digitized stories which may be played back on the St. Olaf website.
The session draws on work of Brad Larson ('84), Craig Rice ('89), Bruce Roberts (professor emeritus) and valuable observations about storytelling by Howard Thorsheim (professor of psychology). The central technology used at the kiosk is the Storytelling Kiosk program which Brad has installed in several museums across the country, including the American Museum of Natural History, The Children's Museum of Boston, and museums motivated to capture stories from visitors.