Art-inspired storymaking on storybird.com By: Malin Ljungström

http://storybird.com/
Storybird.com is an american website. The only thing you need to use
it is a computer with an Internet connection. If you want to print
something you will also need a printer.

The basic idea of storybird.com is to make it easy for anyone to
read, create and share a story, or a storybird. The storybird
can best be described as a short art-inspired story made to share,
read and print. It's like a digital book with text and images. Anyone
can read a story or make a storybird on this website, but in order to
save or share the work or to make comments etc. the student needs to
create an account.

Once an account has been created the student gets access to a
dashboard. Here the student can see the stories she is working
on, already published stories, a reading list and comments made by
other members. If the student is working together with someone on a
storybird, she can use the dashboard to remind them that it's their
turn to write.

There are two main sections on the page, the
read section and the create
section. The read section is a public library where the
student can read and comment on other storybirds. It's also possible
to send a storybird to a friend. In the create section the student
creates his or her own storybirds, either by choosing a theme or an
artist. If the student wants to start by choosing a theme, she clicks
on one of the tags (for example ”monster”, ”animal” or
”sun”), and artwork assosiated with the keyword appears. If the
student wants to start out with an artist she will find a whole
album, from which she can choose pictures.

When starting the storybird, the student starts with a
storymaker-wizard, which is very easy to use. She writes the
text in a textbox and adds images by dragging and dropping. Pages are
simply added by pressing a button. If the student wants, she can
visit the invite page and
invite a collaborator. If the invitation is accepted the students
work together on the same storybird, taking turns to write and add
images. The students can save the storybirds to pick up later, or
publish them. The stories can also be shared in blogs or sent by
e-mail to friends and family.

The teacher can use storybird.com for creative writing tasks. She may
set guidelines for the work depending on the purpose of the task. For
example the student can be asked to write a poem or a story for a
specific target group. The student may be instructed to practice how
to use different tenses. Storybird can also be used to practice
digital publishing, as well as a way of teaching about nettiquette
and how to give constructive feedback. As
always, the teacher needs to consider the purpose of using
storybird.com for a task before getting started. Just because it's
fun and easy to use doesn't make it appropriate for all writing
tasks. Perhaps it works well for some students, while other prefer
traditional ways of writing?
I will now discuss some of the pros and cons I have found while
exploaring the website.

Storybird.com has many benefits. It's a good tool which may inspire
students to write, and it might be especially useful for students who
have a hard time finding inspiration. The many picures available save
time for the teacher, who otherwise may spend time trying to find
good pictures to use without breaking copyright laws. It's easy to
use and I think the students find satisfaction in how easy it is to
create a product they can feel proud of. Sharing the stories with
others is cheap and easy, and the possibility to cooperate and
comment on other students' stories adds another dimension to writing.

There are, however, some disadvantages. First of all, there must be
many computers available if a whole class is to work with storybird
at the same time. Even though it's easy to use, the teacher must be
prepared to spend time instructing before and during work. The broad
choice of pictures may make the process of choosing pictures time
consuming. This may take focus from the actual process of writing.
Although there are many pictures available they could in a way limit
the students' imagination, and the format may imply a specific genre,
that is the picture book. Another disadvantage is that it's rather
expensive to print the storybirds. One may also object to the fact
that the storybirds available for reading may not all be very good.
They may also contain errors. The teacher doesn't have the same
opportunity to control the stories the students read in the same way
as if she buys books or checks them out from a library. Although the
possibility to comment on storybirds may be confidencebuilding and
increase the sense of participation, this might also present problems
with nasty comments.

Is anything missing on storybird.com? Well, one function which I
would find very useful is the possibility for the teacher and the
students to upload their own images. In that way, storybird could be
used in a wider range of subjects. For example, the teacher could
upload images of different animals/artists/composers for the students
to research and write about. The students could upload their own
photos to write about their family or their holiday. Still, there are
other software with those functions, and I think storybird is a good
and modern tool which can be used for students almost all ages.

Malin Ljungström