Ipswich students switch on to digital storytelling at UQ

Ipswich high school students can win from a $3000 prize pool for telling a news story about their local area – using pictures, text, or video.

"Switch it up" is a competition to encourage budding citizen journalists to use EdgeX.org.au to publish their stories.

EdgeX is an interactive website for the Ipswich community – a local "Youtube" – where people can upload as well as download images, video, stories, and other information for free.

The EdgeX research project is a partnership project between UQ, QUT, and Ipswich City Council funded for three years by the federal government through the Australian Research Council and Ipswich City Council.

UQ Business School is sponsoring the prize pool for the competition, and "Switch it up" is the first of a series of competitions to be run in conjunction with the www.edgex.org.au digital expo website.

UQ Business School researcher Dr Liz Ferrier initiated the digital expo and competitions.

"'Switch it up' is a competition for high school students – and we want them to tell us about their local news stories in their medium," Dr Ferrier said.

"They are telling their stories using digital media - words, pictures, video and sound, and EdgeX will be the virtual space that hosts these stories.

"It is a space for local Ipswich news and local content, written by our citizen journalists.

"We held the first workshop with high school students and their teachers last week, to improve their skills around digital media production and new media."

Students and teachers from Bremer High, Ipswich Girls Grammar, Redbank Plains High, Rosewood High and St Peter Claver, learned about amateur content creation and safe guidelines for participating in online publishing spaces.

"Michael Dezuanni, an experienced multimedia educator from Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM), gave the students hands-on video production and editing experience in a one-day intensive program," Dr Ferrier said.

Participants also heard from Jessica Coates, of Creative Commons, about copyright and where copyright-free material may be accessed online for their digital storytelling, including music and images.

"Students can now create their digital stories for the competition and see it published on EdgeX", Dr Ferrier said.

Entries for the "Switch it on" competition are open to all local secondary school students and the competition closes on Friday 27 June.

Schools or community groups interested in attending production training workshops at UQ Ipswich can contact Daniel Lalor, 07 33811232 or Liz Ferrier on e.ferrier@uq.edu.au .