STORYBIRD
storybird.com
What is it?
Storybird is a website where you can make your own
stories using illustrations provided by variety of artists. You have the option
to share the final product in an online library with the world, or to keep it private.
The stories can be embedded in blogs or wikis, emailed, and downloaded. As a
teacher you can create a teacher account and add pupils to your class. This enables
them to read each other’s stories and add comments.Storybird is easy to use. The only thing you need to make it work is a computer and an internet connection. Next, you have to create an account. It requires a username, password and email address. As a teacher you can create a class account so that only one account can be used up to 75 different pupils. Then register your pupils and assign them a username and the storybird will automatically generate an account and a random password for everyone. Now, all members can read and add comments on each other´s stories. It is possible for the teacher to moderate comments before the recipient can see it.
To create a story, log in and click on “create”. You are now able to choose illustrations and
build a story around those images. The images will appear onto a digital
storyboard. Drag an image to your book and a textbox will appear
where you can write and add text. When you are finished you can add another
page. When you are done writing you can click on the menu. Here you will have
three options. You can invite someone, publish the storybird or just save and
close. If your pupils are collaborating they can send their storybird to their
peer.
How the resource can be used
This literacy
tool can be used in different ways and for different purposes. First of all, it
will stimulate the pupils´ imagination and their creativity in the process of
writing. It will help your pupils to create stories in no time. The final product
looks very professional, making the author(s) feel proud about their work, which will help to build their confidence in using the language and increas their interest
in writing. The stories may then be
shared among friends and family, which most pupils find very exciting and very
motivating. By sharing the stories the task will have a real purpose. Storybird
stories are meant to be collaborative. Pupils can work in teams, creating and
learning together. Sharing the work opens up the possibility to peer
assessment. They can see how other pupils have written and learn from it. Essentially,
the teacher can use storybird to inspire pupils to write and read better. In fact,
storybird claims to inspire the most reluctant writers and readers.
An idea on how to
use this resource in the classroom is to create a classroom story, where each
pupil can contribute pages to the story, or it may be used by the teacher to
create “special” stories for pupils, e.g. in order to create stories for
specific reading levels, or include the pupils as characters. The teacher can also create books to organize
content words into different sematic relations or by using different topics.
Other considerations
Story creation, reading and sharing are free
features. But as a teacher it may be useful to know that there are three different
accounts. In order to download stories you need to have a Pro or Pro Plus
account, which you have to pay for. 
What an interesting and inspiring blog post you have written. It really seems like it’s a useful tool for writing stories and it seems very amusing as well. I think it could create motivation for a lot of pupils’ who may not be inspired from the start. A lot of children find it hard to motivate themselves to start with a project like writing stories, especially in a foreign langauge which they may not totally master yet. But with this tool, they can work towards a clear and uplifting goal and I think that will encourage them to start and continue writing even when they find it hard or difficult.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s important as a teacher to clearify that it’s not as much about writing a grammatically correct story from the start. Just as long as they write something, the grammatic parts can always be improved later on. But to inspire the pupils’ to believe in themselves enough to start writing is hard to do and it’s a big step and a part of an on-going process.
I do believe that this could be a good tool to use in all stages of teaching English, even with older pupils’. The fact that they get a ”physical” result of the exercise, might be the turning point for a lot of the pupils’ who find it hard to compose enough energy to finish or even start a project like writing a story. This is definitely something I’m going to try with my pupils’.
My only thought is that it seems like it’s a very time consuming tool to use. Today, as a teacher you don’t have that much time left to spend on tools that take up to much of your time. The fact that you have to create the users for all your pupils’ and maybe also supervise them in one way or another, might be something that makes a lot of teacher’s hesitant towards this tool. I haven’t used this tool myself in real life yet, so to further evolve your presentation you could have given a short description on how much time you think a teacher has to spend on using this tool and if you think it’s an efficient tool to work with.
You have written a very thorough and detailed description on how to use this tool and the perks of using it in your education. It gives other teacher’s inspiration to try and use this tool as well.
What a good way to explain Storybird in. I myself have used this program a few times with my students. Not in the English language but in Swedish. It really is a good tool to use in the classroom. Many of my students have created their own accounts and kept on doing books and stories at home. The program is so available for everyone in school and outside school witch is a big plus.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem I have with my students is that there is so many possibilities that it takes time for them to pick one illustration to work with. The first times we used this program it took almost a whole lesson before they had chosen one illustration. My solution to that was to set an hourglass in five minutes. When that time is out they have to have chosen one illustration and started creating a story. Now they know the time limit and are getting started much more effectively.
The internet world is a place where young children spend more and more time in. If we as teachers can give our students’ tools where they can be creative and learn in the same time and not just play and consume pastime the computer and internet can be a good learning experience.
Just as you say this website offer the consumers to download or to order their stories in real life books. This of course costs money but the choice is there. This option makes the creation much livelier. You can create something on internet that you then can have in your hand and read in any time and in any place. This final product looks very professional just like you mentions, which just as you says making the author feel proud about their work and will increase their confidence in using the English language.
I think you have done a good description in how the website works and how you can use it as a learning activity. If I wouldn’t have used in before I after reading this blog post would definitely try it out!