Hello everyone, this week I would like to show you some digital resources to create stories and comics in class. There are several free tools that you can use with your students, but I would like to focus on just two, which are Storybird and DomoAnimate. Moreover, at the end of the post I will add a short list with other digital tools that I have been testing.
First of all, I would like
to highlight that telling stories is a powerful
way to communicate with others. Besides, if we combine this with a suitable
digital tool the result is an amazing
learning experience in which the student get involve with a higher degree of motivation.
Furthermore, it has many benefits for the students such as:
- It Develops creativity, critical thinking and problem solving abilities.
- It encourages writing and emotional literacy at the time that they express their feelings.
- They are challenging to use High Order Thinking Skills in order to create their stories.
- It develops their decision-making and their communicative skills.
- It helps the student to reflect their acquisition of knowledge and promotes independent learning.
These are just some of the
benefits of promoting this practice in the classroom. Besides, as I said before
there are many free tools to create digital stories for educational purposes,
for example:
It is a fantastic tool to
foster the students to write not only stories, but also poetry. I discover this
resource thanks to my teacher Raquel, and I was amazed since the first time
that I visit the website. It consists on make up your own books, and includes a
huge variety of illustrations that you can use. In fact, these draws can be
perfect to contextualize you poems or stories, or even to find the inspiration
to start your book. 
Apart of that you can also share you creations and printed.
It also includes the possibility for teacher to create a task or assignment
online, and the students are able to finish it at home or wherever they are
because the interface is compatible for tablets and smartphones. As far as I’m concerned, it
is the most intuitive to use and also the results are simply amazing.
It is not as artistic as
the previous tool, but it provides students much more freedom and flexibility
at the time to create their stories. Furthermore, It is has two options:
- Create a slideshows, in which you can upload some random pictures related to something that you work in class and children should create the story from it. Another way to work with this option is to let the children freedom to invent a story and then helps them to find the pictures to illustrate it.
- Domo Animation Studio, which in my opinion it is the more creative option. It has a library of backgrounds, characters, music and random animation effects to create your video story.
As I said at the beginning
of the post, here you have the link of some of the digital tools for teacher
that I like most:
- ZimmerTwins, similar to Domo Animate.
- Piclist, you choose a picture and create a sentence or a quote to accompany the image.
- Animoto, you can combine images, songs and text in a video, but the free version is only 30 second videos.
- Zooburst, to create 3D popup books (check the video in my post about technology).
- MakeBeliefsComix, to create stories out of comic strips. It is very easy to use in class.
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- Comicmaster, it is a bit more complete than the previous one.
If you want more information about digital tools, please do not hesitate to contact me.
See you in the next post!!!
Hello Alberto!
ReplyDeleteThank you for all the information about technology of this post. I like it because I do not know more than storybird website, because Raquel showed us. I think that this a good way to develop creative in our futures students, they can create new stories or maybe you can give them a start and they have to continue it. Furthermore, you can create one account to all the class where the children have to create a story all together, for example, one page per student and in class make the end of the story.It is not only a way to develop creativity, students learn vocabulary and practice English (structures, vocabulary..).
In my opinion technology can help us in many ways, because it is an easy way to create and facilitate in some case the way of work in a school like you have mention they can finish it at home or where they want. I believe that we have to learn more about technology to improve our methodologies.
Bye.
Hi Alberto! Great job, I think that using Storybird has created some interest regarding digital tools you can use in class. These are some of them, and there are many more, specially if you work with Mac computers and devices. I also agree with Patricia in that it is very important to integrate technology appropriately. Using ICT doesn't mean you are a better teacher, it depends on how you use them :). Excellent job, Alberto. Congrats.
ReplyDeleteHi Alberto!
ReplyDeleteI read your post and I found it very interesting, especially because you provide great amount of resources and websites, to carry out activities related with literature such as poetry, stories, tales, etc.
The idea of using technology such as the Internet, to enable students to develop their creativity and imagination about a particular subject, may be inappropriate in some cases if the resources are not used properly.
The activity which we did about the "Storybird" sums up very well what you comment about the benefits have this type of web resources. When we created the different types of poems, you're using your imagination and especially the creativity, because you think it has to be something original and different from the rest. Furthermore, with this type of activity is encouraged the literature through the transmission of feelings and emotions in writing, and if you want orally.
It is true that the use of technology with children allows the teacher to expand the resources that you can use to think and develop activities that are fun, entertained and innovative above all, to get away from the traditional methodology.
Finally, I absolutely agree with what Patricia and Raquel said in her comments, that technology has many applications and we should learn more about this to improve our teaching methodology. In addition, it is also true that the use of ICT does not mean being best teacher, depends on how you use them.