We create a lot of Digital Stories in the Lab. It's an excellent way to get the creative juices flowing and helps with many types of learning...Digital Citizenship, Tech Literacy & Fluency and so much more.We use a variety of programs that allow for adding pictures, text, audio, to name a few, and then many of the final products can be displayed in a slideshow or movie format. These are all presented in the Lab and at The Tech Fair.
ABCYa Animate (http://www.abcya.com/animate.htm) is a fun favorite, which I've talked about in earlier posts. The user has access to 100 slides they can create a unique story or a stop-motion-type story. There are pictures, text that can be added, slides can be copied one to the next and the final product is really quite clever. ABCYa Animate is also available for iPads and other portable devices. Take a look at my stop-motion.....now that's yummy!
Storyboard That (https://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboard-creator) is another favorite. Without logging into an account, the user can create 3 panels of a story using the many backgrounds, characters, texts, shapes and more. It's all very elaborate, the selection. And with the characters, you can change hair color, eye color, clothing color and more. I'm talking elaborate! We use this application not only for fun storytelling, but also biographies, historic fiction, to discuss digital citizenship and then some. I typically like for older Students to pick their favorite genre and begin building their own unique story. I put this example together in a few minutes to give you an idea of what it can look like, but this doesn't even come close to displaying just how much this little program offers.
KidPix is another program that is ideal for our younger friends, but amazingly, older Students pick it because of the variety of things you can do in this program. A few years ago, I would see Staff 'plant' students at a computer and have them use KidPix and call it "technology". It used to make me crazy. Now, years later, I have found that I can use this program to help with keyboarding skills, mouse manipulation, help with navigating within the program, sizing & moving pictures around, and then (and now) digital storytelling. Also, up until a couple of years ago, I wasn't aware you could add your own audio or your own pictures. Well, it turns out you can. You can create a slide show of all your pictures and the final product is a moving story to share. I have Kinder & 1st Grade Friends creating slideshows of the animals they've seen at the zoo and have them add text boxes telling about those animals. It adds to the amazing field trip they just took and the research project they will start in a few short weeks. This is tech integration at it's finest!Here's an idea for Digital Storytelling: Have older Students create unique stories for younger Students, using any of these or other great programs. Adding audio of them, reading their story, makes it more personal and fun for the younger friends to listen and enjoy. These stories can then be a Center during Reading time. I like to do this during different times of the year, so that you can tap into entertaining holiday stories, seasonal stories, and just-about-any-topic stories! It's really a 'hit'!
Happy Creating!
Elana Moore
