Dr. Shelleen Greene’s Art 150 course and PACA share stories of learning and migration

Sharing Stories of Migration and Learning New Cultures

In the Fall 2013 semester, ART 150: Multicultural America worked with the Pan African Community Association (PACA) on a collaborative digital storytelling project. As defined by the Center for Digital Storytelling, a digital story is a first-person narrative told through the use of digital media. Following the “Seven Elements to Digital Storytelling” as outlined in the Digital Storytelling Cookbook (Digital Diner Press, 2010), UWM ART 150 students were paired with PACA students to share and write their stories of migration and of learning new cultures. Throughout the semester, the PACA and UWM ART 150 students worked together, either during their required service learning hours or class sessions held at PACA, to write and produce their digital stories. PACA Education Program Coordinator Michael Grochowski and ART 150 instructor Dr. Shelleen Greene, worked with both the UWM and PACA students to facilitate the collaborative project. UWM and PACA students participated in a story circle in which they shared the stories they wanted to use for the digital narratives, completed audio recording with the ART 150 LLC Mentor Michael Fenner and ART 150 Media Assistant Steven Schwarz, and digital editing using Adobe Premiere, MovieMaker, or iMovie. On Tuesday, December 17, we screened the collaborative digital stories at PACA.