Tuesday tech tip

My daughter wanted to write a story the other day and so I decided to have a little fun and discover some new technology.  I found a great little program called Story Board That . It's an online and app based ( for all you lucky peeps who have chrome books ) program that allows the writer to create story boards with a variety of characters, backgrounds, etc. You can even upload your own pictures!!

My daughters spent their beautiful Saturday creating stories.

Manipulating the character's hair, eye, and skin color. Placing them into the scenes they wanted for their storyline. Adding text in either text boxes or a variety of speech bubbles.  ( remember, this is all on the first real day if spring break!!)

And, the kicker is I had even turned on a movie (planes) just to see if I could pull them away!!  Talk about a teacher's dream come true!!  I actually had to kick them off and tell them that they had worked long enough for today and promise them they could work on it tomorrow.  This has gone on for more than 3 days now!! So.... 

I'm thinking, no!! I'm wishing that I had a classroom to try it out in!!  The motivation is obvious.  The teacher aspects are even better. First of all, the program is EASY to use!! If my 4 year old can do it with little help then any grade school child or partner pair would be able to navigate through(obviously she can't type her story yet). Hmmm I wonder if you can record??  

I absolutely LOVE the teacher dashboard!  Logged in as a teacher, you are able to see the storyboards of all your students at a glance.  In a moment you'll be able to tell whether Suzy Q. is really hard at work on her story, or hard at work creating an imaculate picture. 

 You are also able to present student's storyboards from your dashboard.  I would utilize this mode for group editing mini lessons.  Simply select the desired student's storyboard from the teacher dashboard page and open.  Then located at the bottom of the storyboard are buttons with options, such as "make visible to classroom".

If you are needing an actual product or would like to share with others the work of your students you are able to print and download a powerpoint of the storyboard.

Another fun feature I have discovered while playing with this program is the ability to create a storyboard and save it as a template for your students to use.  I can see this being extremely beneficial for younger classes or faster paced assignments. I could even see using it as an evaluation of recently taught grammar lessons or writing techniques.  The possibilities are endless!

Well, even though it's late....I believe it's a good one!  I hope you have enjoyed this Tuesday's Tech Tip!