Story Telling Tools Week 4
As Primary School Educators, have you ever used digital storytelling activities in with your students ? Let’s talk about some beneďŹ ts of using them in the classroom...
Research and Creativity Students can look up the information they would like to present in their story, both in printed books and other online sources. They can get to choose the topic they want to write about (creative writing), work collaboratively with others (when working in groups) or prepare a whole-class storybook to share with the rest of the school (whole class activity).
Script Writing Students can practice their conversation and writing skills with the aid of digital stories. Younger children can describe their story and write it down with the help of their teacher; older students can practice writing it on paper and then copy it onto the digital story software.
Voice Overs Some storytelling tools allow one to record his/her voice...it will make the story easier to follow for those children who cannot yet read and write, and it can help those who are usually too shy to talk in front of an audience to express themselves. NB to record sounds easily, go to www.123apps.com!
Digital Skills Through the use of digital storytelling applications, students will be able to learn new skills‌.from clicking on an image, dragging images into place, and writing with a keyboard/tablet transferable skills - which they can practice even when using other applications
Presentation Skills Students will be very proud of their story and eager to present it to their school friends….be it an individual, group, or whole class created story. It can be presented during ‘show and tell’, in front of other classes (special assembly ?), to project partners in Malta and abroad! (Erasmus, eTwinning)...
You can ďŹ nd some ideas on digital storytelling the following websites: http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2017/02/10/creating-stories-childre n-1-using-stories-create-joyful-learning-environment/
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2017/02/10/creating-stories-childre n-2-using-stories-create-joyful-learning-environment/
Life Story Works This website is originally aimed at parents who adopt children, but is also useful for those working with students coming from difficult backgrounds. The website has templates and step by step instructions of how one can create a ‘Life Story’ as well as ideas on how storytelling can help children with emotional difficulties.
Life Story Works http://www.lifestoryworks.org/Life_Story_Works/HOME.html
https://www.lifestoryhub.com/portfolio_category/childrens-hub/
Now let’s take a look at some tools that can be used for digital storytelling with young children !
Issuu The easiest way to create a digital story book is Issuu. Issuu lets one work with any program - Word, Powerpoint, PDF - and upload the file easily on the system. The result will be shown as a digital flip-book, ideal for beginners who want to start creating eBooks for the first time.
https://issuu.com/
Snap Guide Think of Snap Guide as a website similar to You Tube, where you can ďŹ nd some interesting DIY guides. You can also create your own Snaps, which take the form of step-by-step instructions on screen. Students can easily add text and pictures to each Snap, and the software is useful, for example, when describing a recipe or how to do an art project.
https://snapguide.com/
My Story Book, Story Jumper and Story Bird These websites are all similar in the sense that they allow one to create online digital stories. They each have different features which we will now explore...some allow you to input your own pictures, some allow you to change fonts...overall it is a question of which tool you think is most adequate to your and your students’ needs.
https://www.mystorybook.com
https://www.storyjumper.com/
https://storybird.com/