The site has launched with over 250 diverse stories already saved for posterity. Celebrity followers include historian Dan Snow, comedian and Oxford History graduate Al Murray and clinical psychologist Professor Tanya Byron.

StoryVault encourages users to interview a friend or family member, usually on video, and to upload the content to the site. Content can either be marked as “private” so it’s accessible only for chosen friends or family, or it can be made available publicly.

www.storyvault.com

StoryVault also gives users the opportunity to store their memories as part of a family-tree. For instance, clicking on the name or picture of “Grandma” will immediately take the user to a set of all the clips of interviews she has given. This can then be shared on a personalised family tree with other family members, so they can add their own content – effectively capturing all the family’s important memories in one place. The structure of StoryVault’s family tree can also be used as an organiser for other groups of people such as clubs, society-members or companies.

Examples of some of the content on the site at the moment, includes:

• Former boss of Phonogram Records Tony Powell telling how his world was turned upside down when Bob Geldof came into his office one day and said “we’re going to make a charity record…..”
• In 1966 Derek Cattani was working as an FA photographer and had already spent a lot of time taking photos of the England World Cup Squad training in the run-up to the finals tournament. He recalls hanging out with the team in training and early matches and playing tennis with Geoff Hurst
• Henry William Allingham was born 6 June 1896 and was, at the age of 113 when he gave this interview, the oldest verified living man in the world. Allingham is the oldest ever surviving member of any of the British Armed Forces and the oldest surviving veteran of the First World War. He is the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland of 1916. Here he describes (as best he can!) his remaining memories of the Battle of Jutland (now deceased)
• Roger Fuller was a 30 year old constable with the Metropolitan Police at the time of the riots. In this interview he talks about events of April 1981 – the Brixton Riots and how the police tried to handle the situation.

How could you use this new resource in the classroom?

edu.memiary.com

I am now pleased to announce that there is a new version of Memiary, especially for education, which is supported by Teaching Ideas. The site has a number of additional features:

• Teachers can set up an account for themselves, as well as having individual accounts for pupils, allowing students to record their own list of five memories / achievements. Teachers can then see what their children have recorded.
• Teachers can change the question… so you could ask your pupils “What did you learn today?”, “What did you achieve today?”, “What were you proud of today?” or another question of your choice.
• You can jump back to previous ‘memiaries’ using a date picker or the random date tool. This is great for browsing around what you have achieved in the past.
• You can embed a widget on your school website / VLE which shows the ‘memiaries’ that you have recorded. Obviously, this makes your the content of your memiaries public, so ensure that pupils are aware of the e-safety issues.

Existing users of Memiary can import their memories into the new educational version. If you haven’t tried out the site before, now is the perfect time to explore. It’s quick, easy and free to register.

What did you learn today?

Every day, you are given the chance to record a maximum of five things that you achieved that day. I’ve been using it on a personal level to make a note of things I’ve achieved at home / at work / with my websites. However, a tweet from @alove this morning made me realise that this could also be useful in the classroom.

The children could update a class account throughout the day, or at the end of the school day, making notes about:

• things that they have learned that day (great self-evaluation!),
• any challenges that had been overcome (and how they overcame them),
• special memories of the day (fantastic for looking back over the year’s achievements).

These memories are recorded with the site and you can then look back through them as time goes by. It’s a great way of showing the wide range of things (and the huge quantity of things) that are achieved on a daily basis… a lot of which may otherwise go unnoticed. It could also be a good way of sharing achievements with the wider world, you can access the ‘memiaries’ via RSS / iCal links, so parents and pupils could review their memories / achievements away from school.

Of course, you don’t necessarily need to use Memiary to do something like this… it would also be possible with a class blog. However, the site has such a simple interface, it is incredibly quick and easy to update your memories.

Try it out – if you use it in the classroom, I’d love to hear your experiences.

Image credit - Memiary for iPhone