Digital Books and Comic Strips: ZooBurst & Creza
In addition to writing stories and incorporating the text into digital editors, you can provide students with opportunities to grow as narrators. Students can use the tools below, which combine voice narration with still images, to publish first-person narratives, news segments, poems, speeches, and more!
ZooBurst: Storytelling through 3-D Pop Up Books
ZooBurst is a free digital storytelling tool that allows anyone to create their own digital 3D pop-up books. Available both on desktops and iPads, authors can select from over 10,000 images to bring their stories alive.
Once students create the books, they can share them using hyperlinks or embed them within a website. iPad users can also use special "Story Codes" to scan ZooBurst books to display on bulletin boards, newsletters or in a printed book. The possibilities with ZooBurst are endless. Not only does this tool allow students to develop and display stories, it also could be used in lieu of PowerPoint presentations or traditional paper reports.
While the basic features of ZooBurst are free allowing students to create 3D websites using the sites' thousands of images, additional features such as sound effects, printing capability, and the privacy of teacher issued student accounts are only available through the premium account ($9.99/mo or $49.99/yr).
Once students create the books, they can share them using hyperlinks or embed them within a website. iPad users can also use special "Story Codes" to scan ZooBurst books to display on bulletin boards, newsletters or in a printed book. The possibilities with ZooBurst are endless. Not only does this tool allow students to develop and display stories, it also could be used in lieu of PowerPoint presentations or traditional paper reports.
While the basic features of ZooBurst are free allowing students to create 3D websites using the sites' thousands of images, additional features such as sound effects, printing capability, and the privacy of teacher issued student accounts are only available through the premium account ($9.99/mo or $49.99/yr).
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Saving our Planet: A Digital Tutorial
Content Area: Science The completed product is vivid, creative and engaging to read in either online or in print form (premium subscription required). Through an exciting narrative that pits Robby against the Gas Mob, the student explains the causes of global pollution and its potential impact. The author does a particularly good job highlighting the spicing up of the overall narrative with dialog that appears in text bubbles above each character. |
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The Feudal System
Content Area: Social Studies In this 6th grade ZooBurst, the complex structure of the feudal system is explained using images and pop up narratives. |
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ZooBurst Tutorial
Here is a teacher created tutorial explaining the basic features of ZooBurst, including how to create and share ZooBurst Books. Moreover, it provides some ideas of how it can be used in the classroom. |
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Comic Strips: Engaging Young Writers
Dr. Gary McPhail, Head of the Lower School at the Meadowbrook School in Weston, has conducted extensive research on the writing preferences of young boys. Dr. McPhail was recently highlighted in an online piece and noted, "we know that some traditional forms of writing, like poetry and personal narrative, don’t align with what boys tend to prefer to write about -- comic books, fiction, letter writing, et cetera -- and the point is to figure out what makes boys tick, develop a curriculum that will motivate them, and provide opportunities for them to realize they are budding writers with a lot to say" (2012).
Dr. McPhail has found that "over 90 percent of the writing curriculum in elementary schools is aligned with the literary preferences of girls which he believes contributes greatly to the phenomenon that girls are at least a year and a half ahead of boys with regards to writing proficiency. This gendered writing gap is as significant as “the achievement gap” (the disparity between white and minority students) and exists both nationally and internationally" (2012).
He states, “While it’s important to not think in terms of stereotypes and instead in terms of tendencies when discussing and researching gender, boys and girls do tend to prefer to write about drastically different topics, and they also tend to find different motivations and inspirations when it comes to the writing process. Boys tend to want to write about action, adventure, and humor and diffuse the personal from their writing. Girls tend to prefer to write about their own emotions, their own personal experiences and poetry" (2012).
To help boys develop into passionate writers, here are some engaging comic book creators. Students can write and animate stories in a different format that is often more appealing to boys such as comic books. Below are a few digital tools to explore!
Dr. McPhail has found that "over 90 percent of the writing curriculum in elementary schools is aligned with the literary preferences of girls which he believes contributes greatly to the phenomenon that girls are at least a year and a half ahead of boys with regards to writing proficiency. This gendered writing gap is as significant as “the achievement gap” (the disparity between white and minority students) and exists both nationally and internationally" (2012).
He states, “While it’s important to not think in terms of stereotypes and instead in terms of tendencies when discussing and researching gender, boys and girls do tend to prefer to write about drastically different topics, and they also tend to find different motivations and inspirations when it comes to the writing process. Boys tend to want to write about action, adventure, and humor and diffuse the personal from their writing. Girls tend to prefer to write about their own emotions, their own personal experiences and poetry" (2012).
To help boys develop into passionate writers, here are some engaging comic book creators. Students can write and animate stories in a different format that is often more appealing to boys such as comic books. Below are a few digital tools to explore!
Creaza
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Creaza Cartoonist is an iPad app that creates cartoons and/or personal digital stories using professional backgrounds, characters, props, images and text. The iPad version is extensive, allowing users to generate professional looking comic strips with a variety of different backgrounds and fonts. You can purchase the app for $1.99.
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