Tools to CREATE (1 of 5): Digital Storytelling

We challenge YOU to CREATE! For the next 5 weeks, learn how to Create: comics, animations, infographics, word clouds, timelines, avatars, talking photos, games, apps, podcasts, etc... and send them to us! In our newsletters, we will feature some of the great stuff YOU have Created!

THEME: It’s time to re-think our perspective on Technology from nouns (tools) like Powerpoint, Wordle, GoAnimate, to Verbs (skills) like Communicating, Presenting, and Telling stories! 

I know, I know, the newsletter is late. Well, let me explain. I started compiling resources for this one newsletter on tech tools to Create, and then BOOM, Pandora’s box was opened! I realized that it was not for “A” newsletter, there was enough great sites and tools for 4 or 5 newsletters! I know many of our past newsletters have been biased towards only educators, but these resources are fantastic for Anyone: parents, grandparents, accountants, actors, construction workers, nurses, dragons, mythical beasts, unicorns, literally anyone.

Just a heads up that most of these tools require you to sign up; don't be deterred, they are free and only take a minute to sign-up.

Here is the breakdown of the next few week’s of newsletters:

1. Create to Present and Tell Stories (Infographics, Comics, Animations, Posters, Virtual Tours)
2. Visualize using Mindmaps, Word clouds, Timelines and Visual QR Codes
3. Create Avatars, Talking Photos, Games, and Apps
4. Create Podcasts, Vodcasts, Remixed Videos and Hold Webinars or Online Conferences
5. Bring it all together and publish your content, by creating a blog or website

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Are you a visual learner? We’ve created a Symbaloo webmix, which provides links to ALL of the resources over the next 5 weeks. If you are ambitious, play around! For this week’s newsletter, we will focus on the first 3 columns on the left.

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REPRESENT

Infographics
We told you that this newsletter is not only for kids, and here is proof in the pudding! Infographics are fantastic for businesses, marketing, researchers, and more! In a world with so much data and information (most presented as text-heavy stimuli), infographics allow you to visualize data in a fun, interesting, and engaging way, especially for visual learners! Here are 2 great tools. We have personally used Piktochart with grade five students and they were amazing, so you’re never too young, and both sites have How-to videos, or you can check out YouTube.

Piktochart: http://piktochart.com  (Facebook log-in or sign-up required)

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Infogram: https://infogr.am (Facebook log-in or sign-up required)

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Interactive Images / Poster
Glogster is a little older and is pretty cool for an interactive digital poster, which you can embed in your website or blog. Thinglink rocks! It is super creative and allows you to embed video, music, links, and much more in an interactive image!

Glogster: http://www.glogster.com (30 Day Free Trial)

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ThingLink: http://www.thinglink.com (Facebook log-in or sign-up required)

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Fake Profiles

Fake profiles for historical figures http://www.classtools.net/FB/home-page 
(No sign-up or sign-in required)
This might be more for teachers, but is definitely a cool tool. For example, you could create a fake facebook profile using this tool for one of your heroes who lived over a hundred years ago. What would their Facebook status say? Who were their friends? Ditch the author biography and rock this new alternative!

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DIGITAL STORYTELLING

I am not going to go into detail for each and every tool here. Essentially, these are all online tools for telling stories through animations, comics, videos, etc... Spend a few quick minutes clicking the links and see what you think.

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Animate / Present
BOO to Powerpoint, YAY to engaging new tools that make Presentations more exciting!

GoAnimate: http://goanimate.com (Facebook log-in or sign-up required)
Above is an example of the capabilities of what you could create using GoAnimate.

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PowToon: http://www.powtoon.com (Facebook log-in or sign-up required)
Above is an example of the capabilities of what you could create using GoAnimate.

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Tellagami App (Animate your life!) https://tellagami.com

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Storyboard

StoryBoard That! http://www.storyboardthat.com (Sign-up required)

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Comics
I am a little bit biased towards BitStrips because I have used it for years. The reason I love it is that it truly gets kids thinking critically about every last detail. You can zoom images in and out, change the body language of characters, facial expressions, there is so much freedom! It’s fantastic for looking at all of the essential elements in creating a great visual story!

BitStrips: http://www.bitstrips.com (Facebook log-in or sign-up required)

What is really cool about BitStrips is that they have recently created the BitStrips app for Facebook, which allows you to create status updates using your own avatar, and let’s you create comics that include any of your other friends who have created an Avatar using this app, in your comics.

If you are a teacher, check out the free class trial, where all of your students can create their own avatars and it groups them in an old-school class picture...very cool!

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Pixton: http://www.pixton.com/ca/ (Facebook log-in or sign-up required)

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Witty Comics: http://www.wittycomics.com (No Sign-up or sign-in required)

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Pop-up 3D Book

ZooBurst: http://www.zooburst.com (Sign-up required)

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Artful Storytelling

StoryBird: http://storybird.com (Sign-up required, and has a safe sign-up option for kids under 13)

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Video
Now, keep in mind that in a few weeks, we will offer free tools where you can make screencasts, edit video, remix video and more. This is one simple tool that allows you to make animation-type videos.

ZimmerTwins: http://www.zimmertwins.com/movie/create (No sign-up or sign-in required)

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Museum Box

Museum Box: http://museumbox.e2bn.org/index.php 

Note: Students can't directly sign-up for this, but you can grab a teacher's account and then you are able to give students access to their own accounts)

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Virtual Tours

Virtual tours http://edtechguro.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/virtual-tours-via-google-presentations/ 

This is a video that teaches you how to use PowerPoint to create Virtual tours. You could also use the same skills learned from this video, and instead of making a Virtual tour, you could create a “Choose your own Adventure” book!

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Digital Storytelling Apps

33 apps for digital storytelling and creativity
If you want to tell stories using technology, but want to do it on your tablet, rather than your laptop or desktop, check out this list.

http://mattbgomez.com/33-great-apps-for-storytelling-and-creativity/

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Start creating and send us what you’ve created so we can show it off in next week’s newsletter!