Description
Create an electronic storybook. Make use of the little gaps in life - on the sofa after dinner, in the back seat of the car, or on a train - to do something creative together.
To create your story:
* Write some text.
* Illustrate by drawing on the screen, taking a photograph of something you see, or drawing on paper and then photographing the paper, or attaching photos from your album.
* Sounds can be recorded for telling your story or as sound effects.
* Layout the elements of your story (text boxes, images, and sound clips) freely by dragging them or pinching to resize.
* Add, reorder, or delete pages from your book.
Your story is always saved in your iPhone. Carry it with you and work on it any time. Upload your story to the StoryKit web server and email a link to the story from within the app. No account is necessary. Stories are private.
The application includes four public domain children's books that you can rewrite and rearrange into your own new story. These are scans of the original bound books that have been specially processed for use on the iPhone. Take "The Three Bears" and make them four. Rewrite "The Three Little Pigs" with the wolf as the victim. Or, start with a blank book and write whatever story is on your minds.
Send us feedback at storykit@childrenslibrary.org.
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In order to improve StoryKit, the application sends us anonymous usage data. The usage data contains no personal information or content from your stories. However, if you upload stories to our website, we may look at those to see how StoryKit is being used and understand what kinds of features would be useful to add in the future. We will not share your stories with anyone outside our research group without your express permission.
StoryKit was designed by researchers at the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab as a basis for studying how mobile devices can be a conduit for children to work with their family members doing creative and educational activities. The idea is that by creating stories on iPhone - as opposed to paper and pens - you can find time to work on these activities anytime and anywhere. When you're done, you can carry it with you in your pocket, show it to friends and family you meet in your daily life, or send it electronically to people who live further away.
Supported by the National Science Foundation
www.childrenslibrary.org
www.cs.umd.edu/hcil
What's New in Version 1.1
Bug fixes - primarily stopping occasional crashing bug that would prevent people from opening app and load their own stories.
iPhone Screenshots
Customer Reviews
A must have!
This is the 'killer app' that got me started using iPods and then iPads in school with my students. There are so many ways you can use this app! It is simple enough for most first graders to catch on to using quickly and be fairly independent using it. You can use the drawing tools in the app to illustrate your story, use photos, or scanned images that you've added to the iPod/iPad.
Although you can't change the font size, type, or color this CAN be an advantage - I've seen kids waste vast amounts of time tweaking fonts instead of getting on with writing when they're using a computer. With this, they just get on with the primary task of writing!
I LOVE that kids can record themselves - especially good for language learners or kids who need to practice their reading fluency. I've taken advantage of this two ways - have kids tell a story and then use their recording to type up the story, or have kids write the story first and then read it aloud. (Make sure the written story is on paper if you do this as the text is hidden by the recording window.) Last year I had one student finally clue in to the fact that her reading was not very fluent when she listened to herself reading her own story. She said "I sound jumpy!" If I had asked her to reread and reread till she sounded fluent, she would have rebelled, but because SHE noticed she didn't sound fluent, she re-recorded and re-recorded of her own accord until it sounded right!
The kids love that the final product is available on the web to share with their families.
I'm did have minor issues with it crashing after the latest iOS upgrade, but am hoping the 1.1 update will have completely fixed that problem.
My Favorite App! :D
I really enjoy using this app. As listed in the title, it's my favorite app. The only downside to it is that the app crashes when you click a specific page to edit, or to read. So you have to start from the beginning and scroll through all of the pages to get to where you need to be. I would really like an update to fix this little glitch. Besides that... Greatest app ever! Please fix though, thanks.
Free!
I can't believe this app is free. I teach K and my kids love this app. It lends itself well for differentiating within my classroom. Students are able to take pictures, type text, record their voices, and draw pictures/write words. We've created many books using this app. Love it and highly recommend it.
- Free
- Category: Education
- Updated: Jan 10, 2012
- Version: 1.1
- Size: 6.5 MB
- Language: English
- Seller: Ben Bederson
- © University of Maryland
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.Requires iOS 3.0 or later
