ABU eWorkshop Connects Online Content Creators across Continents
ABU’s Programme Department organised a 3-week online workshop on Digital and Social Media Storytelling from 17 May – 2 June 2018. During the eWorkshop facilitated by mobile storytelling experts Yusuf and Sumaiya Omar, participants learned how to create social stories that can travel further and faster to attract new audiences and how to find and create viral videos with mobile phones and for mobile devices. In order to expand the creativity of the training and the learning experience of participants, the online sessions of the workshop were hosted via Facebook Live through the Facebook Group created for the workshop by the trainers.
From Samoa to Turkey, the online workshop attracted 170 participants from 40 organisations in 30 countries. In addition, for the first time, the online workshop saw participation from a large number of participants from some African countries, thanks to ABU’s collaboration with African Union of Broadcasting (AUB).
Divided over 3 weeks and delivered through 3 online sessions via Facebook Live, the eWorkshop covered 3 key modules and participants were assigned assessments to work offline each week. Their works were published on the Facebook Group created for the eWorkshop.
During the eWorkshop, participants learned how to create social stories using social discovery techniques and familiarised themselves with new content creation and storytelling techniques and formats such as Facebook Live. They also discovered how to find and create viral videos with their mobile phones and mobile devices in addition to gaining valuable tips on telling stories on Facebook Live and good practices in story planning for digital audiences.
The major highlight of the workshop was an exciting VR demo on Facebook Spaces by the trainers to engage participants with more modern technologies.
“This workshop went above and beyond my expectations. I discovered an incredibly astonishing new side in journalism and media,” Mirna Nokhoudian, a participant from Lebanon said.
“The sessions were very informative. We learned a lot of tips that are easy to remember and implement and we learned about great apps for content creation,” said Jerome Castelain, a participant from Mauritius.
This marks the second online training programme ABU has conducted since the launch of its pilot online course in July 2017 which attracted about 100 participants. As the demand for online learning grows, ABU plans to further expand its online capacity building activities to better cater to the training needs of its members.