So I can across Storybird which is a free site that teachers can create an account with to have students write their own stories. A free teacher account allows you to add up to 3 classes and 75 students. There are of course paid options as well if your school/department has the funds.
One thing that I liked best about Storybird is that it already has pre-loaded illustrations on it. You can search by a word and you will find illustrations that match that word and use them in your story, so students don't have to create all of the illustrations themselves. They can try to be very creative to write their story around the illustrations.
The other aspect of Storybird that I thought was neat was a teacher and pre-load or pre-choose a picture or pictures and have students use them to write their story about. This would be a really neat way to have all students write using the same illustrations and see all of the different ideas they have for their story and how creative our students are.
Here's a story I made for my Spanish II students as a practice.
How do you think you could use Storybird in your classes?
I agree Lisa that an advantage to Storybird (verses other book making websites) are the pre-loaded illustrations, in addition to uploading photos and pictures. I think I could use Storybird in several ways in my classroom. Firstly, my students create a research report on an animal of their choosing. Storybird would help students develop their report including illustrations and captions. I also like the idea of loading a pictures and having students respond. Often during reading centers students are given sentence starters, but creating a book from a prompting photo would be much more interactive.
ReplyDeleteI explored a similar web 2.0 tool www.littlebirdtales.com on my Web 2.0 blog and the main difference between the two sites are the pictures that are conveniently provided by Storybird.
ReplyDeleteOn Little Bird Tales, it allows you to draw your own pictures to illustrate your story. Although this is a great feature it can also be very time consuming, especially for students who are perfectionists. Thanks for sharing this tool!
You are right Lisa, this is a wonderful tool. I never thought of using Storybird for Spanish instruction but I've used it with my 5th graders. As part of the writing curriculum they are required to write an adventure story. I find that the beautiful illustrations lend themselves to some very fanciful stories. In my school we're blessed with a wonderful teacher in our Media Center. She set up Storybird accounts for my students and worked use of the site into Media instruction as well. I love the way students can invite others to collaborate with them on stories. One of my students even invited my niece in Montana to collaborate on a story with her. It was great fun working on the project together and perhaps the best part of it was when the students invited the children from the primary grades to join us as they shared their stories. The primary children were captivated by the stories and the online presentation of them. I also had some very proud authors in my classroom.
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful tool for all students! I can see it used for autistic students or other socially awkward students to make social stories.
ReplyDeleteIs there any way to share the stories that are created?