Workshop [4]

(1) Exploration of different platforms from Howspace

At first, we took some time to navigate through the content creation platforms as they were organized in the pages of the Howspace environment. We mostly had time to create accounts for the first ones (Genially, Thinglink).

(2) Split of LLMs - Individual Conversation

Upon getting a better idea on the content creation platforms, each one of us chose a different LLM and started conversing with it about storytelling principles and suggestions of interesting topics:

I conversed with Gemini, Pirjo with Claude and Niina with ChatGPT.

(3) Decision the topic based on LLM suggestions

We collaboratively discussed and compared the suggested topics by LLMs. Pirjo's seemed to be the most interesting ones (Claude really does give more sophisticated results), and we decided on one of her suggested topics which was "A society where aging is cured". 

(4) Decision on implementation

We had three choices in terms of implementations.

Either 1-n, n-n, n-1, where n is the number of topics/subtopics OR the number of digital platforms.

We wanted to have one story that would be connected, so the only way we could think of that would allow us to work in parallel and use a variety of tools was if we split our topic into three subtopics and each one of us built on that in different media platforms. We tried to select platforms that referred to multiple media formats, e.g images, audio, video, interactive content.

(5) Shared Doc for brainstorming

We discussed for a bit what would be some possible subtopics, and initially we thought about splitting the topic to pros and cons, but we still needed a third subtopic for the third person to work on. For that reason, I quickly prompted Gemini for suggesting me a variety of possible subtopics.

It suggested for us to analyze different aspects of the subject, such as the ethical implication, emotional impacts, technological advancements. At that point, we created a shared document to split the subtopics and build our narrative collaboratively. 

I copy-pasted Gemini's suggestions and we firstly decided on which subtopic each one of us would analyze.

You can find the shared document by clicking on this link.

(6) Trial-and-error session with the platforms

We began our attempts to create content on the platforms. 

I was initially thinking of Genially and Thinglink, Pirjo started experimented with H5P and Niina wanted to do something with music. We soon realized that we hadn't build our narrative enough so we didn't have a sufficient body of content to engage with the platforms. So we returned to the shared doc.

(7) Return to the doc

Now we were ready for a more structured analysis.

We practiced collaborative problem-solving for issues such as:

• How will we introduce the story?

• Prioritizing the subtopics - Which one should go first? In which way will we have the best flow?

• Which platform use makes more sense for each subtopic, depending on the order?

• How will those different medias be connected to create a unified end-result?

Based on those questions, we decided that it made sense for the story to begin with a narration. Soon, a second thought followed which was creating background music for the narration, which we wanted to have an eerie, dystopian feeling. Niina started writing on the introduction, while me and Pirjo started formulating questions about our subtopics that we could then expand on for our storytelling.

(8) Platform hands-on work

After we had built the narrative on a satisfactory level, it was time to implement it. Each one of us got to work on the platforms!

I experimented for a while but quickly decided on the HeyGen tool for video creation because it seemed like the most powerful of the available tools. I was very surprised by the avatar option because it was very realistic and it made the story look more official and polished. The tool was very straight-forward but it also had many functionalities that I didn't have time to discover, so I went with a basic build-up.

I wanted to use images that looked dystopian, and for that purpose I used DALL-E 3 and Microsoft Designer for AI-generated images. 

I also used Gemini and prompted it to provide me with a story based on the questions that I had previously written on the shared doc. 

(9) Connecting the puzzle pieces together

At the end of the implementation, we had three separate products that we wanted to connect. For that purpose, I used Microsoft Clipchamp to simply put our works together and finalize it.