What Is It?
My Storybook is an application that allows students to engage in literacy in a creative and fun way and provides educators with the ability to tie multiple subjects together through the art of storytelling. This application provides students with the opportunity to spill their imaginations and make their stories come to life. Literacy can be a challenging subject area for our growing learners. My Storybook has the potential to inspire passion in students making the reading and writing process more fun and engaging.
How Does It Work?
- Take A Writing Lesson: learn how to craft your book step-by-step
- Build Your Storybook: add characters, pictures, drawing and writing
- Share Your Stories: save and publish your story online to share it with others. You can share the link with your classmates.
- Join the Storybook Community: you can read and listen to books from the worldwide community.
STRENGTHS
- Accessibility: This application can be accessed using a tablet or mobile device. Students who have an existing email address can sign up and start using My Storybook. Students who do not have an email address can log into each device with a single email address.
- Cost Effective: My Storybook is free for student and educator use.
- Simple Formatting: The features of this application are simple making it easy for children to navigate.
- Personalized Learning Experience: Students have the opportunity to construct a story that is of interest to them through the use of technology. The upload images feature allows them to personalize the features of their storybook.
LIMITATIONS
- Mobile Website: This application requires a web browser (Safari or Google Chrome). There is no mobile application available at this time. A mobile app could improve the ease with which it is used on a tablet or mobile device.
- Voice Feature: My Storybook is missing the voice recording feature that similar applications have limiting students who struggle with reading and writing.
SIMILAR APPLICATIONS
- StoryJumper
- Little Bird Tales
- Picture Book
- StoryBots
A Closer Look At Digital Storytelling
Digital Storytelling serves as a useful learning tool for students of all ages and grade levels who are challenged with the task of creating their own stories (Robin, 2016). Activities can be tailored to fit the needs of students based on their individual capabilities. By making the learning more relevant, this innovative approach has the potential to improve learning outcomes across curricular areas. Engaging in activities such as writing electronic books, allows students to be creators of something unique (Menezes, 2012). "They become comfortable with the act of creation: turning nothing into something" (Menezes, 2012, p.300).
As we move forward in the 21st century, young people are becoming increasingly familiar with technology. They appear to be progressively engaged and motivated by activities that require a mobile device. Digital Storytelling fuels creativity and provides students with a voice allowing them to use their stories to share their ideas with others (Robin, 2016). It can also be used to facilitate writing through scripts and storyboards to promote student engagement and reflection (Robin, 2016). The traditional writing process can be taxing for students. Digital storytelling serves as a refreshing way for students to engage in this process. Like traditional storytelling, telling stories digitally also requires plotting a personal narration about self, family, ideas, achievements, disappointments, or learning experiences (Wang & Zhan, 2010). The graphics, animations, and other elements help build an enhanced storytelling experience. Students have the ability to build many important skills by using this outlet for learning. Through digital storytelling, students who have the opportunity to share their work with their peers may gain valuable insight in evaluating their own and other students’ work (Robin, 2016).
Through exploration of a variety of resources for digital storytelling, a noteworthy limitation was identified. Unfortunately some applications are incompatible with mobile devices. Other applications require a web browser for access posing a challenge for children to work with its features. In comparison, mobile applications are more user-friendly on a tablet or mobile device. It is important for educators to consider accessibility when evaluating a digital storytelling application for use within the classroom.
References
Menezes, H. (2012). Using Digital Storytelling to Improve Literacy Skills. International Association for Development of the Information Society.
Robin, B. R. (2016). The power of digital storytelling to support teaching and learning. Digital Education Review, (30), 17-29.
Wang, S., & Zhan, H. (2010). Enhancing teaching and learning with digital storytelling. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education (IJICTE), 6(2), 76-87.