What: Helps you build an illustrated storybook.
Ease of use: Simple to use, and endlessly extendable. You'll have a class of experts in 10 mins!
SAFE!: Storybirds are reviewed before they go live. If inapropriate material is posted, the developers pull the story off the website. It's that simple. In addition, you can determine who sees your story. Everyone, or just your closest friends.
Suited: Middle years primary and above. While I can easily imagine students using this at a primary level, don't dismiss it for secondary students, and yes I do mean up to year 12 students. Why? Because teaching economy in language is a valuable thing for writers of any age, and the perfect vehicle for it is a picture book.
My strong suggestion before you start with Storybird is to register an account. It's quick, easy, and there's even a login section specifically intended for children under 13 that's simplified. It won't take you long.
One reason for doing this, is that given the time you'll spend creating your story, you don't want students to lose their work at the end of class because of time constraints or other unforseen eventualities. The second reason is that you can only view your stories online ... there's no option to print out the results. If you want to review your story later, you have to do it online. This is because Storybird offer the service of printing it for you, at a cost.
Writing application:
While it lacks the benefits of teaching juxtaposition as easily as a tool like Pim Pam Pum, this site has plenty to offer. The illustrations are wonderful, and if you were teaching theme or voice it's a perfect vehicle for that discussion in a classroom.
Writing application:
Storybird was launched as a collaborative story building tool, which I find intriguing, and encouraging. One person might for example, select the images, another the text. Discussion about the form the story should take is inevitable, and wonderful!
The Storybird site puts it this way: 'Someone starts a Storybird by writing a few words or grabbing a few images. Then the other person takes a turn, adding more words and pictures. In one or two turns they can finish and share a Storybird. It's that easy. And they can do it sitting side-by-side or across the country from each other.'
Can you imagine using this tool with another class ... in another district, or state ... or another country? So can I!
Working with an existing text:
Recreating a more complex narrative as a picture book is one exercise that's worth exploring with Storybird. It's one way of ensuring students have a grasp of the structure of a story, or a section of a story. It's also a useful way of having them reveal what they know about archetypal characters in the story.
For example, you might identify an archetype in your class novel, and have students build a new picturebook incorporating what they know is typical of that archetype in a character in their narrative.
NOTE: Just because it's a picture book doesn't mean you have to explore elementary themes either. Just take a wander through Fox, the CBC award winner for 2001. The threat of death, betrayal, lost friendship, serious injury. Well written picture books can be just as confronting, and powerful as a novel.
You'll also find that Bookr offers a very simliar opportunity to create stories. It's made by the same people that brought you Pim Pam Pum, and the only difference is in the presentation. With Bookr you create a 'photobook' rather than an interactive slideshow.
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