Thursday, December 09, 2010

Day 2 - StoryBird for Struggling Writers

Today's post highlights StoryBird, a free online storytelling tool to engage struggling writers. Storybird offers an extensive collection of beautiful graphics. Students select the graphics they would like to use in their story, drag and drop the graphics in a sequence of their choosing and then write text. It really is as simple as that.

It is also possible to read Storybirds that others have created, save them to a reading list or embed them in blogs, wikis, or glogs.

Storybird works with Co:Writer word prediction and Dragon Naturally Speaking software. 

Here are two to give you an idea of what a StoryBird can be:

The Holidays are Here on Storybird

When I look up at night. on Storybird

Applications - Struggling writers often have difficulty imagining and developing an idea. Storybird provides the external structure which promotes student success. Reluctant or struggling writers seem to love the ability to select graphics for their own creative stories. Because it is a forgiving, flexibility program, students can easily edit and change their work. Use this tool during a writing block to promote success with writing.

Don't forget to share the site with parents so that students can continue writing at home.

1 comment:

Janet DeSenzo said...

This is great! Thanks for sharing Karen! I just wish I could find a way to make these beautiful books read aloud!