New Teacher Boot Camp Fall Re-Boot:Week 3 Using Storybird #ntchat
As part of Edutopia.org’s Summer Professional Development Series, I was honored to be selected as the facilitator of a workshop on web 2.0 tools for new teachers. Over the five-week workshop, participants learned about one new tool a week, by visiting my blog on Edutopia, did some practice lessons with the tool and then developed their own samples.
The samples of their work with the tool were then placed on a portfolio page on the New Teacher Boot Camp wiki .
Each week, we met on Twitter for #ntchat on Wednesdays at 8pm ET/5pm PT to discuss the tool and share our experiences and ideas.
Many have mentioned that they missed the bootcamp, so I’m continuing to share the posts that were on Edutopia here on my blog. This will be a great opportunity, as the school year gets started for many of you, to dive in to these tools and use them with your students!
Here is week 3 in this 5 week series: Using Storybird in the Classroom. Read below to get started…
Week 3: Using StoryBird in the Classroom
Welcome to New Teacher Boot Camp! Today we’re going to be exploring StoryBird.
What is Storybird?
Storybirds are short, art-inspired stories you make to share, read, and print. It is a fun, collaborative, storytelling website.
Storybird was designed to allow children to work with parents and friends in creating art-inspired stories to share and save. It is also now a very popular tool to for use by teachers with their students around the globe. Users choose from art hosted on the site and build a story around those images that can then be shared with family and friends. Storybird encourages creativity and is a web tool that supports working collaboratively.
The final product can be printed, watched on screen, or shared in an online library with the world. You also have the option to keep it private on the network.
Stephen Davis on How He Uses Storybird
Stephen Davis is a Middle School English teacher in Cypress, California. He is also one of two wonderful educators sharing resources this week.
From Stephen:Here is an example from my eighth grade class based in Cypress, California.
Storybird can help students bring abstract thoughts in their mind to life and adds a dynamic, digital component to traditional storyboards.
Without requiring any artistic ability, students drag and drop characters and images onto a digital storyboard. Students are inspired by the themes and artwork available on Storybird: abstract thoughts and emotions students could not express easily come to the surface.
A concrete visual representation of their abstract thoughts can now be transformed into wonderful writing. Students can use the finished Storybird to write a paper that expands their abstract thoughts into a traditional essay.
Destinee, a student in my class, created a Storybird prior to writing part of her essay. Then, Destinee’s Storybird became a portion of an essay that she wrote. In this way, students in my class can choose which piece, the Storybird or the formal essay, they want to be given a formal grade. Students now have experience writing formal essays and expressing themselves in a relevant, meaningful manner.
Introducing Aviva Dunsinger, First/Second Grade
From Aviva: Here is an example of a Storybird from my first and second grade class in Ancaster, Ontario.
This year I used Storybird as a way for students to apply what they learned about story elements by creating their own stories on themes that interested them.
Sometimes the students wrote these stories independently, and sometimes they worked in partners to write them. In the example shown above, one group of students started the story during literacy centres, and then the next day, the students read what the first group wrote, and added to it. This became a miniature class version of the Progressive Story Project. Students loved seeing how the story that they started would end. This not only became a great writing opportunity, but a great reading one as well!
We also used Storybird during math centres. Students created small group Storybirds on time and three-dimensional solids: two topics that they learned about in math. Storybird was a great way to make literacy a part of all subject areas. With a tool such as Storybird, students were encouraged to not just focus on conventions, but also develop interesting ideas in their writing. Creating these digital storybooks also made my grade 1 and 2 students feel like real writers, increasing their interest in writing!
Thanks to Aviva and Stephen for these great StoryBird ideas as we begin to explore the use of this awesome tool!
Storybird Tutorials
Here is a helpful tutorial on how to learn how to use Storybird.
Step 1: Create a Storybird account. If you will be using this with students, use their free Class Accounts to manage students without emails, create assignments, and build beautiful libraries.
Step 2: Click sign in at the StoryBird site
Step 3: Customize your avatar
Step 4 : Brush up on our community guidelines on StoryBird
Step 5: Make (create) a Storybird!
Step 6: Read some Storybirds done by others
Step 7 See all the things you can do with your stories!
Step 1: Go to http://storybird.com/
Step 2: Sign in to your account
Step 3: Click on your published Storybird
Step 4: Click on the blue type that says “Embed and badges”
Step 5: Copy the Storybird code for the “Regular Size Code”
Step 6: Go to your page on the wiki
Step 7: Click “Edit Page”
Step 8: Click on the Widget (embed widget) in the tool bar on your page
Step 9: In this widget menu click “Other (other html)”
Step 10: Paste your Storybird code in the html box on this page
Step 11: Click Save and a widget will now be on your page
Step 12: Click Save again and your Storybird will now appear on your page!
More Useful Links for Storybird ideas
As you are starting to get excited about ways to use Storybird, here are a few links that have some great suggestions on how to use it with students in the classroom.
About Stephen Davis
I’m a Middle School english teacher at Lexington Junior High School in Cypress, California. I continually strive to challenge myself, absorbing new theories and best practices that wash up on shore, while letting those things that matter least go back out with the tide. You can find me at Rush the Iceberg and on Twitter @rushtheiceberg.
About Aviva Dunsinger
I teach grade 1 and 2 at Ancaster Meadow School in Ancaster, Ontario. I love to find new ways to integrate technology into the classroom to help students learn and to help them have more control over their learning. You can find all of my blog links through my class website and you can also find me on Twitter as @grade1.
I hope this will inspire you to get started with Storybird!
If, you are already an experiencec user, pass this post along to a newbie who could use it!
Let me know, if it’s helpful. Stay tuned for next Friday’s posting…
Thanks for stopping by and for joining the journey into this fall learning opportunity!
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LISA DABBS
Wife. Mom. Educator. Author. She started her career as an elementary school teacher in Southern California. In this role as teacher, she assisted with a grant project and became the Project Director of a Language and Literacy program. Read more
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So glad you are continuing New Teacher Boot Camp on your own blog! I love the concept because there is just so much out there and is hard to know where to start!