Cool Tool #3 Storybird

Storybird, the new and exciting way to make education come to life.

                For this week of my cool tool reviews, I have chosen Storybird.  This piece of technology is very interesting, but in my opinion, somewhat limited.  Storybird basically allows users to create a picture story about anything they please.  It comes with preexisting illustrations to add on to the story.  Students can use this create a long story with multiple chapters, a shorter story with lots of pictures, or a single page poem.  A complete description of the tool can be viewed here: https://storybird.com/educators/.  The user can create three types of presentations: longform book, picture book, and poem. 

Once the user had selected the type of presentation they would like to use, they can start adding content.

                

When they are finished, they then can share their work with anyone.

               

I said this is somewhat limited because I can see it has being very class specific and a little age specific.  I could definitely see an elementary language arts class using this so students can create a customized story of their own.  They can select from a wide variety of illustrations to help tell their story while they write their own content.  As stated before, these students could use it to create a longform story or even single poem.  As far as other contents being able to use this, I see it as limited.   

                One awesome feature with Storybird, is teachers can create their own classroom and add students and even parents to partake.  Teachers can add assignments for students that will show the due date and submissions. 

                I created a practice assignment for a U.S. history class about George Washington (see below).  I asked students to watch the video that was linked and create a three-page picture book about three facts they learned from the video.  This could be done at home or even in the classroom if everyone had the technology. 

                All in all, I think Storybird is a very interesting tool and it work wonderfully in a language arts type of class.  It is free to use forever, with only a few features that can be accessed from using the websites own type of currency.  Their currency is unlocked for free as the user explores all of the features it offers.  Check out a full Storybird example here.