Another Writing Tool...

storybird.com

A similar tool to littlebirdtales.com is storybird.com. Where littlebirdtales.com is geared to the primary years, this is for the older ones. Instead of creating their own artwork for a book, students get to choose from hundreds of artist created works. Their claim is that this is "art-inspired storytelling". Students can begin simply by selecting artwork that they have an interest in or selecting a theme. If students select a theme say for instance pirate, they will be given artwork that features pirates. (Examples below were taken directly from the website)

Educational Uses
I have to say my students loved this website. They were hooked from the moment they created their user details. I used it as a way to just get students to use their creativity to write.

Did I mention that storybird can also be done as a collaborative project?! Well there ya go, it can. Students can invite others to help write a story. Many of my students didn't have to be told how to do this, they figured it out on their own. Just goes to show you how easy this website is, so easy a 3rd grader can figure it out. Many invited a partner to edit their work. The website more so centers the collaboration with adults, but I find that the children enjoyed getting help from their peers versus an adult.

Here is a snapshot of the Library where my students put their stories in during this past school year.

I really learned a lot about ways to improve the use of this website with my students. I kind of gave this to them as a way to see what they could do. I was very proud of them for jumping and getting to work on a few stories together though. I found that I could use this site to help students edit each others works. It also could be used in a mini-lesson for elements of writing. It would be a great way to track the growth in a students writing over the school year.