The image above is a screenshot of stories that I have started and I will invite my students to collaborate with me for a final story.
Storybird will allow my students to create stories with simple, easy steps. When beginning a story students can choose from artist’s creations or themes. Once they have made the choice a template comes up and then a variety of artwork is displayed to the sides of the book. Just click and drag the artwork and write words to go with the picture. Click “Add a page” to continue to the next page. The cover is basic and chosen for the authors; that’s all the author has to do is create a title and the username is automatically inserted as the author.
In Storybird you can start a story and invite others to collaborate with you. I created a story titled: Wise Sayings. I created five pages and now I’m ready to invite my students to join me in authoring this story. What a great way for students to spend their time on the Web after school hours. I am excited to see the outcome of using Storybird in this way.
I think this is an awesome tool. I have a first grader an I am seeing a shift in how students are urged to write. Many of her homework assignments now focus on her writing complete sentences and stories about happenings versus filling in the blanks. I think it is awesome and I am going to send this tool to her teacher to review. This would be great for them.
ReplyDeleteThis is also good to build those critical thinking skills. Having worked at a college where i worked with students to write thank you letters for scholarships I found that many of the students lacked those skills. Starting early is promising and is key in getting them to write, especially in the age of technology where students don't communicate face to face as much. Critical thinking is going to be very important moving forward.
I am sitting with my 2 year old right now and I let him pick a story from Storybird and he loves it. He points to the the storybook and I open and read it to him. Each time we end a story he is ready to make his next choice. I will say a lot of the stories are short and not proofread, but that's how we learn:)
ReplyDeleteCollette,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a tool I can use for my students to make their ABC book. I've had students create them in the past and they had to chose a topic that was interest to them. I'm contemplating allowing them to use the host of vocabulary words they've been introduced to this year and use Flickr to find pictures to depict the word's meaning. Storytime looks like it might be the platform for them to create the book. I'll visit the site to see if it works.
Thanks!
Wow, I didn't know you were pregnant. Congratulations!!
ReplyDelete