Bringing Archives to Life 
An Archiving Wheeling Partnership with Weelunk.
For more great Wheeling stories visit www.weelunk.com.
Most history lovers are familiar with Ken Burns’ epic documentaries, including The Dustbowl and Baseball. His abilities to make still photos and two-dimensional objects come alive are world renowned. Now, even Luddites can achieve similar, engaging effects with archival materials using a much shorter medium called digital storytelling.
Started as a grassroots movement to help people who might otherwise go unheard tell and share their stories, digital storytelling has become a vehicle for change around the world. To create a digital story, the storyteller needs a computer, iPad, or Smartphone, free digital storytelling software, a microphone, and digital images. The aim is to write a script that can be told in about three to five minutes. Once created, the digital story can be shared on the Internet, especially through social media, which broadens the audience reach exponentially.
Through a partnership with the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, my Honors students at California University of Pennsylvania have spent the last three years creating digital stories with archival materials from historical societies throughout western Pennsylvania. This year, we are working in my home state of West Virginia. Read More
