Storyjumper

Earlier this week, a number of Spanish teachers at my school shared with my department about Storyjumper, a digital storytelling web application. Essentially, Storyjumper allows for users to create digital storybooks with texts, illustrations, voice recordings, music, and sound effects. Below is a digital storybook which I created for a reading using Storyjumper. The story began as a dictatio of 8 sentences, but I was able to create a Tier 2 embedded reading of the story using Storyjumper:

Read this book made on StoryJumper

Observations

1. I like that having text, illustrations, and narration at the same time gives learners double, even triple input.
2. I like this SO MUCH better than screencasting a PowerPoint, because it has more of a storytelling feel to it, since it is a digital book.
3. It is a FREE web resource. However, if you wish to publish what you create, you can sell it on Storyjumper.
4. Being able to add music and sound effects does make your book more compelling and interesting to listen to.
5. I wish that StoryboardThat had a narration and sound function, since it already has a digital comic book feel to it.
6. Drawbacks
1. Compared to StoryboardThat, Storyjumper does have limitations with the amount of provided illustration choices and their capabilities. One can import pictures into Storyjumper. With StoryboardThat, there are a lot more illustration choices and what one can do with them (cropping, changing angles, poses, etc.)
2. Although Storyjumper does provide music and sound effect choices, they are limited.

Here is a video tutorial of Storyjumper:

Although Storyjumper does have its drawbacks, this is a web resource which I will be using more in the future.

Pictionary/Tell A Story

This is an activity which I learned at my first Rusticatio in 2010. It is part Pictionary, part Tell A Story.

1) Ask a student in the class for a letter of the alphabet.
2) Now play Pictionary with the class, where students will volunteer to draw pictoral representations of the vocabulary words beginning with that particular letter
3) Do not erase the picture after a student draws it, but keep it up on the board. In fact, students may add to the existing picture if they choose (as long as the word begins with that letter).
4) Once you have 8-9 words, then tell the class that you will tell them a story involving those words which were drawn. You can also do this as an Ask a Story.

Here is an example which I did with one of my Latin 2 classes. The letter which a student picked was "A"

The words which were drawn were: agricola, auris, audit, animal, amat, amicus, arbor, ad, aqua, aedificat

Here is the story which they came up with as an Ask a Story: agricola animal amat, sed animal agricolam non amat. ergo, animal ad silvam fugit. in silva sunt multae arbores. in silva, animal duos amicos aedificantes villam conspicit. agricola est tristis, et clamat quod amat animal. animal agricolam clamantem auribus audit et ad aquam fugit.

Observations:
1) A fun activity for students. The Pictionary aspect gives students a different way to interact with vocabulary.
2) Using only particular words for the Tell/Ask a Story can be a bit tricky since there are some specific parameters but at the same time, the parameters keep the story from getting off task
3) Since the students determined which words are going to be in the story, it gives them some ownership of the story.