More about Storybird

Some of my friends that have read our digital story, Simple Gestures, have been asking me questions about how it was created.  For anyone not familiar with Storybird, it is a website that facilitates the creation of digital stories.  Once you create a Storybird account, you will gain access to a variety of illustrations by numerous artists.  Once you find an illustration that catches your eye, or perhaps matches the story line you are going to write, you will choose the pictures from a collection by that same artist to accompany your text.  Here are a few examples of the collections.

Example collection of illustrations 

Example collection of illustrations 

Once you chose the art collection you want, you can pick pictures from the entire collection

From there, you decide which order you want the pictures to go in, and start to add text to the story.  Some authors go in with a story already created, or have a story in mind, and others use the pictures as their guide.  When writing Simple Gestures, it was our first time navigating Storybird, and we had no idea what we were going to write about.  By perusing the collections of illustrations available for our age group, we found one picture, the cover of the story, that grabbed our attention, and the story was born from there.

Once we had some ideas come together we really got into it, and wanted to create our best story.  Keeping in mind that this could potentially be used with our students, we incorporated story elements that students learn about in 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th grade.  Some examples include alliteration, writing with dialogue, describing the setting, and using sensory details.  

This text describes the setting and uses alliteration.

Here a lot of dialogue is being used to keep the story progressing.

One of the benefits of Storybird is that teachers can use it to create stories for their students, or the students can use it to create stories themselves.  For some students this would be very motivating, and I’m sure they could come up with a very creative end product.  Other students, might have a difficult time generating ideas, especially because some of the collections are very limiting, unless you really are creative and think outside the box.  When I try this with my students next year, I am definitely going to have them try it in pairs first.  

Give it a try in your classroom, and let me know what you think!

Storybird

Love, Juan and I just created our first digital story with Storybird.  It is aimed at students ages 8-12 and includes story elements that students learn about throughout the year in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade.  We hope you enjoy Simple Gestures. 

Animoto

As I did some research on educational ways to use Animoto within the classroom setting, I realized the possibilities are pretty much endless.  Some teachers use them in lieu of flashcards, helping students to recognize and learn sight words, spelling patterns, and new vocabulary. Other teachers use them as a way to introduce or review concepts and material covered in science or social studies units.  I saw a examples of teachers and students creating Animoto videos to demonstrate math processes in order to reinforce instruction as well as understanding of a given math topic.  Still, there were many other uses, including scavenger hunts, movie trailers, poetry presentations, research reports and oh so many more!  What I can conclude from the various examples I watched, is that if you can dream it, Animoto can help you do it!  

The first video I made was of my students participating in an experiential learning activity as part of our Social Studies unit on the Civil War.  For this simulation the students acted the part of Union Soldiers fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg.  The classroom was set up in stations that mimicked actual places at the battle sight including a campfire and surgeon's tent.  Throughout the day the students learned about the battle and poor medical care during the Civil War, problem solved real Gettysburg situations, ate hardtack, sang campfire songs, treated battle wounds, read and wrote letters to loved ones, and even took cover when they heard the Confederate soldiers attacking.  Using Animoto's "Old Glory" themed template, I added the pictures and some simple text to create an exciting recap of the day for students to enjoy and reflect on.  

The second video I made was also related to our Social Studies curriculum, but this time it served as an introduction to the unit on Immigration and Industrialization.  This decision was based mostly on timing, seeing as though that is what we are currently studying.  However, it was also made to help students see the connection between immigration and industrialization in the United States, as well as provide a visual aid of the immigrant experience to prepare them for their Ellis Island simulation coming up next week. The first thing I did to create this video was extract the Enduring Understandings from the unit  so I could use them as its framework.  Based on the content of the enduring understandings, I found photos to accompany each one in order to bring the words to life and give meaning to the concepts that are being taught.  Finally I downloaded the song, "Isle of Hope" to serve as the music for the video because it is told from the point of view of an immigrant and portrays the highs and lows of the voyage.  The end product is a video that I showed to introduce the unit, and will show again to review the unit.  My hope is that my students were able to obtain some background knowledge on this topic as they start to learn more about it, become familiar with the enduring understandings, and see first-hand accounts of this time period in history.   Although it may not be the best Animoto ever made, I think it definitely serves its purpose!  Enjoy!