Of all the technologies that I have come across these past weeks, I am most excited about the many digital story-telling tools. This is the kind of thing I would have loved as a kid. I remember spending many nights stapling together paper to make books with my sister and I switching off as author and illustrator though we often lacked supplies. In first grade, our teacher asked us each to write a book, and we were promised that if we worked hard, she would take them to the printer who would type them up and make them look professional. It took weeks, but when we got them back, we felt like we really became authors. But, I should note, we were removed from the final creation process. We had no choice in font size or style, we couldn't have illustrations printed, and everybody's cover and binding were the same. Also, I am sure that it cost either the teacher or our school a good chunk of money. This is where the digital story-telling tools come in handy. So, let's explore a few:
Zooburst lets you create 3D pop-up books.
Zooburst lets you create 3D pop-up books.
A brief tutorial on story-writing with ZooBurst.
StoryJumper: a game-like approach to story-telling based on illustrations created by dragging and dropping images.
A beginner's tutorial to StoryJumper.
StoryBird: write stories inspired by artwork from professional illustrators and animators.
An introduction to StoryBird for educators.
My favorite is StoryBird because the art is so diverse and beautiful. It would be fun to assign students the same images and see how creative they can be. It's also a great tool for free write exercises.