storymaking and i.t.


Traditionally, storytelling would have been enjoyed by the young, the old and everybody in between. However, to many of today's young people the idea of listening to a real live storyteller is distinctly 'uncool'.

The Story Making and I.T. project was an attempt to engage people of secondary-school age with the processes and benefits of storytelling, whilst tapping into their own interests and skills.

It involved the use of Neverwinter Nights, a computer role-play game, to encourage participants to generate stories of their own.

This game contains game-creating software that allows one to create your own levels in which to place objects, terrain and characters for players to interact with.

The story is told through dialogue that is assigned to each individual character. The beauty of this is that, like storytelling, the story will be different every time because the player has to make choices as to how the dialogue will proceed. There are, however, limits to the software's capabilities which means that sometimes ideas cannot be completely realized.

The project, led by David Murray, was a great success.

The project funder was:

 Scottish Enterprise Digital Inclusion Fund