Digital Resource Review: Storybird

Storybird

Overview:

Teacher Point of View:   This website allows students to create their own books using other people's artwork. You can create picture books, poetry or chapter books (Longform).  These books can then be printed after paying a fee.  This site allows teachers to create private accounts for their students.  Teachers can also create assignments to help guide students into complete a specific type of project or to create literature using a specific artist's artwork.

Price/Availability:
Storybird is free to sign up.  You can sign up for a teacher account and allow your students access to all of the artwork and templates for book creation. You can order published work. To see the price visit the website or see the table below.

Storybird Creation	Cost
Sign up	Free
Hardcover Picture Book	Starting at $29.99
Softcover Picture Book	Starting at $12.59
Digital Download Bundle Picture Book	$3.99
eBook Longform	$2.99
Printable PDF Longform	$2.99
Art Print Poetry	$24.99
Folded Card Poetry (set of 10)	$18.99
Flat Notecards Envelopes (set of 10)	$16.99
Greeting Card (digital download)	$1.99
Art Print	$24.99
Writing Journal	$24.99
Folded Cards (set of 10)	$18.99
iPhone 5 case	$34.99

Images:

When you complete your work you have the option to make it public.  

There is a glitch in the bottom left corner.  It said I needed a title, but didn't give me the option.  I had to try several times before this went away.

This is another glitch.  For a long time it showed me a blank page where I could not type or add a picture. 

Here is the final page where you can choose to have your book printed.

You can either buy the book yourself or ask for a donation.  

Rationale for Tool Selection:
I selected this tool because I was hoping to have a better way for my students to connect to their writing. I think often primary writing is only read by their classroom teacher and/or parent.  I liked the idea that my students would see their work come to life in a published book.

In addition, I have a lot of reluctant writers. I was hoping the artwork would inspire them to create great stories.  Often generating ideas is a struggle for my classroom and their allowed for some visual support for students.

Lastly, I liked the idea that families could view their student's writing on the computer as compared to it coming home graded.  I think this digital way of viewing things would connect with a lot of my families that have cell phones.  The best way to view the books is on the computer though, in my opinion.

Assessment Rubric/Review:  
This assessment rubric was challenging to create.  The first feature that was important to me was cost. I come from a school with over 50% free and reduced lunch.  I didn't want to endorse a product if I felt like I could not provide families a reasonable price to but student work.  The cost of the website itself was free but I feel the books are a little pricey.  I think the writing that would need to be generated in order to make having a book printed might be a little out of the scope of a 2nd grade classroom.

Secondly, ease of use was my most important feature as a teacher.  My students do not have a lot of computer skills and this program needed to be easy to use.  The point of the program is to create writing and I did not want my students spending their whole time trying to log on.  I also wanted this to be an exciting website for my students to use and appeal to my student that struggles to write a sentence all the way to my students that write paragraphs during one writing session.

This website has a login for each student.  This is nice because it adds privacy, but frustrating because you have to create a login for each student and this is another thing they need to remember.  You can print cards to help with this.  Also students get to pick their own passwords, this is not primary friendly.

I hoped this website would appeal to students and families.  I liked the idea of how this website connected school and home through writing.  The website has a link that you can send to families so they can view their student's writing.

It was also important as a teacher to be able to easily see what the student is working on an give feedback. Creating assignments was very simple. One issue that concerned me was not being able to see my student's work until they decided to share it with me.  As a 2nd grade teacher I feel like it is important to see the whole process.  In addition, the program does not help promote the writing process.  Students need to see the artwork, organize it into a story and then write.  As a teacher that would mean creating a picture book, going back to plan it out and then writing it as a final book.  It felt like students would be writing to fit the pictures instead of creating their original work.

The last feature that I thought was cool, but unrelated to my classroom was the artwork.  I think this is a great place to post artwork and get money for it.  Talented student artists might considering submitting work on this website.

Pro vs. Con:

Pros	Feature	Cons
Free to sign up Free to create books	Cost	Variety of pricing from $1.99 – over $29.99
Creating Assignments Tutorials for students Link to share with parents Lark (Poetry Version) works with iOS devices (iPhone only)	Ease to Use	Requires a lot of computer literacy and ability to find, organize and create text with given artwork. Create cover last Has glitches  Personal log in for students Only available through computers
Getting to see student work in a digital and printed format	Engagement/Motivation	If books are not purchased then they remain available to only a small group of people
Pictures can help reluctant writers generate ideas	Differentiation Learning	Picture limit writers who have clear ideas
Seeing student work in a more public way	Appeal	Having to pay money in order to get access to the work
Student accounts are free Can see student work privately.	Teacher Version	Creating student account takes awhile. Need to do fundraising to get books purchased
A large variety of art to choose from	Artwork	Can only use one artists work per book Art doesn’t always connect to student writing
Help reluctant writers gather ideas	Educational Benefit	Doesn’t promote the writing process

Comparable Resources:
Here is a website that I used to compare Storybird with other websites focusing on reluctant writers.  When looking at the other websites it became clear that many of the websites had a combination of creating your artwork and writing.  I think this is one of the biggest things missing with Storybird, you are bound to the art.  In order to best engage students I would like to use a website that allows them to pick a predesigned background but then add different images to create the scene that matches their writing.

While investigating websites I also found sites that encourage comic book writing.  These short ideas to explain a scene could really help engaged my students.  I would like to investigate BitStrips for schools.  These are very popular and could really have the funny piece that relates to a lot of my writers.

By far, Storybird has the best artwork. If this is what interests the user then I would recommend it.  If teachers are looking to help develop students creativity through art and writing I think ZooBurst, myStoryMaker,  StoryStarters, and StoryJumper are more user friendly and student focused as well as promoting writing.

Ideas for Literacy Instruction:
Storybird has a lot of options for classroom production.  I would see potentially using this website for fiction stories.  Unfortunately, this is not a large focus in 2nd grade. This might be a good option for schools that have mentorship, similar to book buddies. If my students had an older student to help navigate the computer they could both create a book together.

Another area that I might try this with is poetry. This has not been a focus of my review, but I would be interested since their poetry section comes in an iPad app, Lark.  This lets you pick a picture and gives you a set of words, think Magnetic Poetry but in the 21st century.  This might help my reluctant writers when we get to our Poetry unit.

English Language Art Standards:
Some standards this might support in 2nd grade are...
Uses the writing process to plan and draft literary genres

• 3.1.d - Write simple, descriptive poems
  3.1.f - Use a knowledge of structure and crafts of various forms of writing gained through reading and listening to mentor texts

Uses proper conventions and grammar when writing

• 3.3.a - Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking
  3.3.a.ii - Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g., feet, children, teeth, mice, fish)
  3.3.a.iii - Use reflexive pronouns (e.g., myself, ourselves)
  3.3.a.v - Use adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified
  3.3.a.vii - Produce, expand, and rearrange complete simple and compound sentences (e.g., The little boy watched the movie; The action movie was watched by the little boy)
  3.3.a.ix - Spell high-frequency words correctly.
  3.3.b – Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing
  3.3.b.iv - Generalize learned spelling patterns when writing words (e.g., cage – badge; boy – boil)
  3.3.d - With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers

Getting Started: 
In order to get started go to the Storybird website.  You will then be directed to create an account.  At this time you can choose an teacher account.  You will then need to import a class list and print login cards for the student. If you have questions visit their FAQ website.  

Week 6: Stickiness, Inferencing, and Purpose...Oh My!

This week the articles focused around delivery of information.  Hicks (2013) focused around the dying art of PowerPoint. I personally love listening to TED Talks.  The presenters are engaging and often leave the audience with a powerful message about the topic they were discussing.  As a teacher, this is what I hope to do with my students.  I also want to give them the skills to captivate an audience and engage people with a message that is important to them.  As always, I try me best to think about how this information can be used in a 2nd grade classroom.  

I am always inspired by the amazing ideas that teachers are doing around technology.  I also related to Hobbs and Moore (2013) feeling of being reserved about using technology in primary grades. I often find myself doing a lot of direct instruction around the area of technology vs. embedding instructional techniques through hands on learning.

One project that students usually connect with is our upcoming animal project.  They love researching information both in printed books and online.  This is one of the first times that students are reading to learn information as compared to learning to read.  This is a big difference from primary students to intermediate students.  I was inspired when thinking about how students could present their information in an alternative format that would engage themselves and others into learning more about their animals.  

When looking further into alternative options that help students share their ideas I really bounced back and forth between the readings.  I really connected to students trying to focus on who their audience is and the purpose of their information. We used a more structured writing format and this is a topic we discuss a lot in writing. Unfortunately, this skill has not transferred into my students reading.  They still cannot tell me who this book would appeal or explain the author's purpose in writing the text.  Hobbs and Moore (2013) discussed more explicit examples that primary teachers used to sort different TV shows by target audience (p. 170-178).  This gave me the idea to connect this to reading. This explicit instruction could allow my students to see why we read the books we read and what we gain from what we read.  Hobbs and Moore state that "...we looked at the performance of all students, we found that inference-making about purpose and target audience is highly correlated with students' reading comprehension as measured by standardized reading (but not math) scores" (p. 178).  It is essential that we teach these skills even though they are abstract and quiet challenging for 2nd graders to grasp.  When these skills are taught, not only do students become critical thinkers about the world around them, but gain deeper understandings of the information they are receiving. 

I feel that once my students are able to articulate target audience and purpose they will be able to design an engaging presentation. Hicks (2013) talk about stickiness and the importance presentations being, "simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and storylike" (p. 73).  I think as a primary teacher it is important to start small.  As a teacher of 7 and 8 year olds I value them creating; simple, concrete and credible presentations as the animal report is focused around research.  These three things can help guide my students into a successful presentation.  I also found an article that can help other teachers get different ideas about presentations formats.  These presentations will help my students stay focused on using credible sources and keeping their presentations simple and clear.  

I found this really helpful template for my students if we decide to used Prezi for their animal reports.  This video help explain some important design elements and will challenge my students to find photos, main ideas of their paragraphs and allow them to video important information. 

taken from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX7Gh806He8

Overall, from the articles the issues that more resonated with me were how to get my students to think about target audiences and purpose in meaningful ways that connect to our classroom learning.  I also want to allow my students unique and engaging ways to present their knowledge that connects to important 21st century skills.

Week 5: The Academic and Digital Gap Widens

After reading the article for the week, I crafted this response the focused on promoting student success through multimodal responses, using students skills beyond just paper books and promoting critical, thoughtful and direct instruction of apps in the classroom.  Then I deleted it.  I took my hard work and hit the delete button.  This week's post is for my students.  The kids that test every ounce of patience I have.  The kids that I love and think about beyond just the school hours.  This post is for them.

We are told all about how students are coming in with more computer skills.  We as teachers are supposed to use them and build these amazing things that combine millions of standards into one.  I love the idea of that.  Every year I am so excited to see just how many more skills my students come to me with.  The truth is....the opposite it happening.  This year I have more students than ever that cannot log into the computer. They can't open a window, they don't know how to get to PBSkids.org.   We have student's that cannot use the iPad even when given direct instruction like Northrop & Killeen (2009) discussed.  We have practiced, stated the purpose and more than ever our students still insist there is a computer problem when they just typed their name in wrong.  I love how Northrop & Killeen (2009) discussed using the idea of gradual release, but when happens when we never can get to the independent practice?

When I was reading the article by Castek et al. (2009), I was very impressed by the amount of computer skills the middle school students had. They were able to navigate to pages they wanted, be critical thinkers about the information they were reading and explore the Internet in a useful and meaningful way they helped them access their classroom.  These are students who were able to produce work that was within the grade level expectations.  Is this a product of age, or of students getting a well rounded education at home in addition to school?

I know my students play video games.  Even though over half my class is reading below grade level we are consistently working on building computer skills as stated in Castek et al. (2009).  We get to go to the lab once a week.  As we are now over halfway through the school year we are still practicing the same skills.  We are stuck just like with the iPads in the teacher directed practice.  Students can learn skills in isolation but cannot transfer them to another website.  They shut down and get mad when after clicking on the same button 25 times it still doesn't do what they want.

My fear when reading these articles was that my students were getting left behind.  So many of my parents do not own a computer in their home.  They maybe have a tablet, but it is often broken.  While reading the article by Dalton & Grisham (2013), I could not help but fear the future.  Will we ever get to the place where we can retell a story using GarageBand from a character's perspective?  If we get there how long will it take?  What will I have to give up in my classroom to make this happen?  I love the idea of multimodal responses to literature, they are engaging and build on a ton of skills.  What happens when the pre-skills are not there?  How much time do you commit to these projects while still teaching other important skills?

I feel lost and fearful for the future when I read about all of these great things that students are doing in the classroom.  I am scared that not only are my student's low in academic areas, but they are now behind in the digital world.  How do we combat this issue?  Are other people feeling this way?  My students deserve the best education but it feels like an uphill battle. So much of what we read seems to bank of students being able to come into the classroom with skills.  Most of my students play a lot of video games on a gaming device.  Unfortunately, I have not seen this translate to great computer or tablet literacy. Am I missing an opportunity?  It sure feels like I am.  After reading these articles I searched for apps that could help my students.  Here is a website I found to be helpful.  I found the visual to be helpful because it allowed me to see where I can be developing skills beyond just a specific academic time.

Taken from: http://www.weareteachers.com/images/contest-images/six-traits-across-the-curriculum.jpg?sfvrsn=2

As this point I think a list of skills that are important to building computer literacy would be helpful.  This could then be something that we get to work with parents with in to promote these ideas in all aspects of students lives.

This week I was left with more questions and worries than answers.  I am okay with that, I truly believe that is part of teaching cycle of life.  I know I love technology and am so excited about the future.  I also know that I am scared that my student's are coming in lower and lower in regards to academic and digital skills.  This post is not my giving up, it is me stating what I know to be true and to be comfortable with putting it into words.  My students are more than test scores and I promise you I will not give up on them.  This issue of technology in schools is here to stay, but it instead of throwing things in blindly it is time to honest about what some schools are facing.  We are not saying no to technology, we are saying, HELP!  Show us how to fill in gaps, show us to how to combine standards and time manage technology.  We are saying help us use iPads in meaningful ways.  We are saying lets be a team of leaders to make sure all students succeed, not just the ones with technology at home.  Trust me, my kids are worth it.

Week 4: Building Digital Literacy with a Critical Eye

I chose articles that focused on digital literacy for primary students.  I also focused my reading on e-books in the classroom.  As teachers we are often faced with an abundance of resources that don't appear to be connected to our classroom.  As you have read my blog hopefully my philosophy and learning style show through.  As we digest and gain new information about technology in the classroom I believe in reflecting on what this means to the educational community, what this means for my classroom specifically and analyzing the possible challenges that lie ahead.

I started reading an article by Hillman and Marshall (2009).  This article focuses on how we as teachers and family members can incorporate technology in a meaningful and powerful way into the classroom.  The most powerful piece of the article that stuck with me was the quote, "It is our role as the parent, teacher, and caregiver to model how to make sense of the world and then guide the child into searching for, finding, analyzing, organizing, and evaluating the plethora of information that will soon be at his or her fingertips" (p. 261).  I has always known that technology is going to play a key role in the future of my students. This quote really made me realize that we can no longer stand passively by and wait to be told what to do.  We must treat digital literacy like we teach learning to read and write.  Without our help we are sending our students into the world ill equipped to be critical thinkers of a world filled with endless information.

In addition to having a call to action Hillman and Marshall (2009) discuss guiding questions that can be very helpful when analyzing the use and value that technology has on early learners. Here are the questions that are were discussed.

• Is the role of the child integral to the activity?
• Does it increase the child's familiarity and ability with technology?
• Does it reflect a global perspective?
• Is this targeted to young children?
• Does it provide knowledge of results a child can understand?
• Does the program promote participation (collaboration) among children, parents, caregivers and teachers? (p.258)

These are the questions I plan on using when thinking about activities in my own classroom.  I especially liked the piece about collaboration.  As teachers we are expected to teach, learn, explore, master, reproduce and be experts on many things. I think this collaboration piece allows us to really open ourselves up to learning from our students and families.  Technology knowledge is all about building off one another and this is a great opportunity to do just that. 

The other two articles I read focused on e-books in the classroom.  Yokota and Teale (2014) summed up fear perfectly, "We find these digital picture books to be the most exciting innovation in literature for children in a long time-and also the scariest" (p. 577).  My classroom library currently had about 1,700 printed books in my room.  All of these books range from different interests to different levels.  2nd grade is an amazing time for literature, children go from basic readers to reading books with theme, characters and books in a series. As I read this article I realized that most of my reading takes place on my iPad. This connected to the need to teach children about the information they are going to get.  Am I doing a disservice by not promoting more e-books in my classroom? How can I go about this?  What does a balanced classroom look like?  This article reinforced that idea that balance is key.  In addition, it also gave some helpful key questions to ask when looking into e-books in the classroom.

Zipke (2014) focused their article on how to build a strong e-book library.  The first plan of attack was making a list of things that I value as a teacher.  This tied a lot of to many point brought up by Yokota and Teale (2014).  As a teacher I value easy to read print, highlighting words as they are read and e-books the make a print book better.  I don't value a book that is just scanned in just for the sake of it.  I want my students to be able to engage with text.  This is something I work on all the time with my students as it is something I struggled with in school.  I like the idea of having words that are defined or activities that extend learning.  I also want to find e-books that can make students read the books on their own.  It would be great to find e-books that record the child reading. This would greatly help with fluency.  By being able to make a list of things I value as a teacher I am now able to focus myself on the type of e-books I would like to add to my library.  

I have attached an e-book I found on YouTube.  This is an example of an e-book that might not be the best fit.  It has sounds that might make a student more engaged but might take away from the text.  This book also does not highlight text as it is read.  In addition, each page id read separately so you can't see the whole book.  I enjoy this book a lot but with my guidelines that I have developed it would not be a fit in my classroom at this time.