Bubblr lets you use Flickr images to create stories. Type tags and select pictures into your storyboard. Add as many frames as you need and place bubbles showing the story and the dialogue between the characters appearing in the pictures.
Once the story is finished… publish it! Share it through facebook, send it by email or paste it in your blog or website! It is a good tool to work on given situations appointed by the teacher… for example: “Create a Bubblr with a story related to a situation at an airport”. Type the tag “airport”, or “airport lounge”, or “passengers” and use the pictures you have in the appearing library
Fodey is a simple but catchy webpage that lets you and your students create newspaper clips very easily. Add a made up newspaper, a title for the article, a date… and write. have fun and imagine incredible news. A very good resource to practice vocabulary and writing skills… easy peasy!!
Time for the youngest! Domo animate is a very beautiful site where kids can create their own animated stories, a bit like ZimmerTwins.
A very intuitive interface lets you choose characters, background, messages, music and effects. just click and place the item in the scene.
Once the item/character is in the scene, it can acquire movement, expression, it can perform actions… just click and choose!
Keep adding scenes until the story is finished, and then publish it!
It’s really easy… make sure kids think of the story before they start editing, once they are familiar with the application. You can embed it in your website, your blog, or you can email it to people… parents?
Incredible website to enrich writing skills, even for those who want to go further into writing full length stories. Protagonize is meant for those who want to write a story and want to share it with the rest of the world, or just with a tiny bunch.
Collaborative stories have room here… start with an introduction and a first chapter, decide if this chapter can also be modified, invite people to a private writing party or just leave it open to everyone. people participating in the creative process can add their own chapters and maybe edit and modify the others… give instructions on what you want the other people (your pupils?) to do, or let their imagination wander free.
A very clear interface, maybe not very catchy for primary education, where you choose the kind of text you want to write. You can add an introduction where you can let out an idea of the story you are writing, or maybe the instructions for participants.
Decide wheter the story you are about to start is going to be your own individual work (students could create their own accounts and therefore work on their stories on their own), or you want to start a collaborative story, whereby a group of people/pupils will collaborate in the creative process chapter after chapter.
If you prefer to play as you write, if you want to create an adventure, click on Addventure and start a story which will branch out into different plots which will take the reader into different developments of the story… probably extra work, but extremely catchy and motivating!! Your pupils can make groups and each of these groups can create a development of the story you create, or each student of the group can develop the story they have begun cooperatively in a different way.
What are you waiting for? Sign up and start writing!!!
Have your students glued to their chairs in front of the screens as they practise their typing skills and subsequently learn a lot of vocabulary. Typeracer is a free Internet application where students test their typing speed and challenge their colleagues to see who’s the fastest in the group. It’s online, it’s easy and catchy. Have a look!
Do you remember ZimmerTwins? There’s a tutorial in this blog. It was a very good example of Internet resources that foster creativity and help students to improve their writing skills. we are going to see some other possibilities we can find in the www.
Teachers and students upload sets of 3, 6 or 9 pictures, and they are stored for their use within the application. You only need to choose the set of pictures, and order them as you like, write the story, be it short, long, complex or simple and have it printed. It is a very simple tool basically for primary students, with direct tangible results. You ca also record voice to be played. Stories cannot be stored yet, although this feature will be available very soon.
Bookr lets you create your own picture books out of the photographs you have previously uploaded in flickr. Even though it is more of a photo album than a book, it can be used by your students to make albums of the school trips or more visual projects they can carry out. Here’s an example from a couple of pages of a very simple but nice book:
Bubblr creates comic strips out of the whole flickr archive. add bubbles and create the stories that your imagination can produce. Primary school students will love it. They can also upload their own pictures.
These easy and rewarding tools show us writing activities are not only limited to pen-to-paper drills.
The British Council introduces this small applet, Text Terminator, from Learn English Central. Students must complete hidden texts in three different levels. You can listen to the story if it is too difficult.
This is a good resource from BBC’s Bitesize to help students to write argumentative texts. It’s the closest thing to interaction when it comes to the this issue. Good for Batxillerat, give it a try!
