Once upon a time, there was a class full of students. They needed to learn to tell vibrant, engaging, complex stories for a myriad of educational benefits. Storytelling would help them learn to express themselves clearly, to structure their thoughts and hone their descriptive skills.
But the students were cursed with boredom – with only a pen and paper to create their masterpieces they were bored and limited and the results were distinctly lackluster. Then, one day, their teacher discovered a myriad of exciting online tools to sprinkle their stories with magic and excitement once again! And they all lived happily ever after…
Tools for Student Storytelling
1. StoryKit
This great iPhone or iPad app enables kids to create stories quickly and easily by combining writing with audio and visual tools. It works a little like a Power Point presentation and students can intersperse their story with illustrations fluidly and simply by drawing on the screen or taking a photo with their device and inserting it into the narrative.
2. Educreations
This clever tool essentially turns the student’s device into a recordable whiteboard complete with digital ink, voice recording, text and pictures. A great benefit of this app is that the results are easily shareable via e-mail or Facebook.
3. Comic Life
A fantastic tool specially created with education in mind, this will enable your students to create fabulous comics of their own invention quickly and easily. Students can use clip art pictures, photographs or drawn and scanned images and easily add speech bubbles and captions to create the words of the story.
4. Storybird
Allows students to make short, art-inspired stories they can share on any device. Free class accounts allow teachers to manage students without email, create assignments and build digital libraries. Students can access artwork curated specially from illustrators and animators around the world to use within their own stories, and can gather followers to read their masterpieces once they’re finished!
5. Kerpoof
Specially designed for students, this simple tool owned and operated by the Walt Disney company enables users to create animated stories. There’s a special educator page with ideas and tips, lesson plans and classroom ideas – explaining how the tool can be used to create educational stories illustrating everything from the life cycle of a butterfly to the story of the American Revolution!
Have you found any brilliant digital student storytelling tools to use with your class? Share your tips in the comments below!
Feature image courtesy of Flickr, beketchai.