Hello Everyone,
Thanks to all who attended our Lightning Talk this morning on the new StoryToGo Classroom.
The original intent of this teaching portal was to create a space to develop and share courses (open and paid, public and private classes) in contemporary media and storytelling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lyS_-faXjo
The pandemic lit a fire under this project and has caused it to evolve. The plan now is to build it a bit more light a community centre with:
-
Our Media Courses
-
Kids Camps, Courses and Field Trips
-
A Health and Wellness Studio
-
A Teaching Lab
-
A Culture Hub
For the techies, I’ve stubbornly been working to find a solution that allows me to build the site with WordPress to keep operating costs sustainable. Currently that solution is the LearnDash LMS plugin built on top of a StudioPress theme.
Our current funding is coming from private classes in some unexpected areas (a cheerleading school, running BCIT’s first online summer camps on the platform, and currently film productions in Vancouver for set school) and grants to fund new OER courses and experiment with the web monetization model.
Long term my hope is that from the site’s portion of the paid courses, along with the operating and marketing costs, that will help fund the maintenance of the open courses (and the development of some new ones).
Instructor / Course Developer-wise we are getting a mix of creators, including @DanDubien :
-
Artist and Media types looking for a new opportunity and to build a new income source for themselves
-
OER Developers looking for a home for their open courses that will be maintained and will share their content
-
Educators looking to develop a different sort of course, often more relaxed, or teach different things
At any rate, I’d love to invite anyone who is interested in creating - whether open content, paid course, or private group courses.
Also if anyone wants more details on how we are building, working with our instructors and course developers, our experiments with the web monetization model, or on the tech side of things, I am always happy to share.
~ Erica