storybird me!

What is it all about?

Storybird is a fun new collaborative storytelling website.  Storybird makes it easy to create and tell stories digitally.  Students and teachers can create stories together by combining imaginative artwork and text.  The final product can be printed, watched on screen, played with like a toy, or shared in an online library with the world. In short, it is a free online tool that helps you make short, art-inspired, stories that you can share, read, and print.


How to use it?


1. Firstly, once you have entered www.storybird.com, please select 'sign up' where you need to create your own account.

2. After confirming your email address. Select 'Jump in!' to start creating your own storybook.

3. The first step is to select an artist. Here we get a chance to see some of the artworks you have chosen.

4. Here we get a  Select “Start a Storybird”.


5. This is the storymaker. Drag illustrations onto the canvas, & then write the story in the text boxes. You can add additional pages at the bottom.

6. When you’re finished, select “Menu” & then “Publish this Storybird…”

7. Before publishing you can write a short summary of the book and select appropriate age range. Make sure to set the story to “public”. Then select “Publish”.

11. You have now finished and published a Storybird!



How can teacher benefit this tool in the classroom?

Teacher could initially give out a topic and ask students to brainstorm the idea together. For example, the topic of 'my family' and teacher would ask students questions like 'how many family members do you have?', 'what do you do with your family during leisure time' and etc. Then, teacher would demonstrate the storybird tool to the students. Firstly, teacher could start by selecting pictures that suit their description. For example, if the students say 'My family loves fishing', then teacher would choose picture of a man holding a fishing rod. Then, students are asked to be in pairs. Then, they could continue the topic by collaborating the stories with their partners.




Why is it good?

1. It creates a sweet memory with friends. Later on, even when they have graduated from school, students can still read the stories they have created online.

2. Teacher can use the great artwork and share them with other students not only online but also in the version of hard copy. Yes! The book can be printed out.

3. The tool has an intuitive interface and beautiful illustrations. It provides whole collections of artwork around a theme or topic. The artwork is by amazing artists and the collections are linked. So all the pictures have the same ‘look and feel’ and can be easily fitted together to create a very professional looking story.

4. This tool helps students who do not write well in language.  They will have to carefully select their own pictures before writing the stories, this will help them with the writing process because when selecting the pictures, they are actually building images and builds the story line in their mind. This will make them ore excited.




The weakness of it..

1. Time-consuming and it is not easy to have a collaborative story telling. Different students may want their stories to be told differently. My friends and I created a story together and ended up disagreeing with a lot of matters, for example, the name of the characters, the ending of the stories including the plot of the stories. It is very complicated to work with if you have a difficult partner!

Intervue.me

What is it all about?

http://www.intervue.me is a quick and easy webiste for publishers who are looking to gather short video responses online from anyone with a webcam.


How to use it?

It is simple, easy to use, and appealing.  Just pose a question or series of questions and ask for video responses from students.

You simply have to sign up, create a new intervue with appropriate security settings and set up the questions you intend to ask.  You can then send students a link to your intervue and they can record 60 seconds of video with their webcam whilst flipping through the questions.  The really nice thing is that as well as sharing the video on Twitter, you can download the video in ready to use mp4 format, isn't this tool awesome?

Step 1 : Choose your privacy setting.

Step 2 : Compose your question carefully. You can edit questions later but existing video

responses retain their original questions.

How can teacher benefit this tool in the classroom?

The teacher can go online and write some interviews topics. For example, ‘Social Problems in Malaysia’or more casual topics like ‘Your Favourite Music’, ‘Holiday’. Teachers have to be careful in choosing the topic, level of the students, students’ language proficiency and suitability of the topic have to be taken into consideration.

Firstly, teachers have to decide a general topic to discuss with the students. Then, create a series of questions to be asked. For example, ‘What are the factors that cause social problems in Malaysia?’  Preferably, teachers may ask the students to brainstorm the questions together in the class.

The most interesting part is the way students can respond to the interview questions!

Choice, level, objectives, what have you done in class.

Framework to use this tool :

Theme – questions – practice.

Teacher would do an example first. Teacher would give the students time to prepare and practice and ask the students to write down their points.

Why is it good?

1.       Students are happy to respond since it is private and it is recorded video and improve their video since students can do it at home.

2.       E-portfolio,  e-record

3.       Oral exercise at home. It is very hard to ask the students to speak English at home. This will enhance their accuracy.

4.       Real communication is happening between teacher and students. Some students will tell their private stories and opinions  in response to the questions given.

5.   Student will self-correct themselves because they know they have an audience.

6. Students enjoy talking, when we do it in class we are even smiling.

7. Teachers do not have to do a lot of work. Teachers have the chance to build personal connection with their students by listening to their stories.

The weakness of it...

1. Not all students like the chosen topic; some may think that it is boring.

2. This tool is not suitable for low level students as they might find it hard to speak in English.

3. Recording should not be done in the class because it will be very noisy and interference of others students.  Students prefer to do recording at home because they will be shy and intimidated by other students. At home, they can write it out and make an effort to make a perfect video. However, it is not spontaneous.

4. Not everyone are comfortable talking in front of the camera. 

BUBBLR; A new way of presenting in class!

What is it all about?

Have you ever heard of Bubblr? Bubblr is a tool to for students to create their own images with dialogue boxes for description.This is an interesting way for students to explore and expand their imagination as there are thousands of images you can choose from.


Using images in language classroom is a fun way to enhance students' interest towards learning. This happen when it allows learners to acquire the knowledge using visual stimulus.  Bubblr allows teachers to 'steal' photos without breaking copyrights, as it locates public images from Flickr database in such an accessible way and teachers are allowed to edit them by adding captions using bubbles to become comic strips. Since Bubblr does not have many features that is easy to be used, thus, it is appropriate to be used in the ELT classrooms.


The example of Bubblr comic strips that I have done, is as below:

 


How can teacher benefit this tool in the classroom?

Bubblr can be used to practice specific grammar points. For example, if teacher want to teach the students Imperative. The comic strips feature of Bubblr are suitable to practice this grammar point since dialogue can be inserted in every pictures. To drill Simple Future Tense, teacher could ask the students to produce a presentation of the places you are going to visit.

Next, after explaining the grammar point to the students, teacher then could assign it as students' homework to make a slideshow on Bubblr. Later in the next class, in pairs, ask students to write short comments on the pictures and let them be prepared to deliver a oral presentation in the next lesson with more details.
Encourage students to share their artwork to their pen pal in another city or country.


Why is it good?

1. Students can create a comic strip and dialogue with this tool.

2. Students will develope a sense of ownership because it is their arts work.

3. It allows language practice opportunity trough the appropriate task that can be created. Hence, it creates fluency.

4. It is practical since students do not have to sign up.



The weakness of it..

1. My own personal experience is that it does not work properly when embedded to my blogger account.

2. Not all students are accessed to the internet.

3. Pictures from flickr are not as nice as I expected.

4. The bubble in the pictures are sometimes not suitable in the size and can be very distracting and annoying since they are not adjustable!