Scribjab is a tool through which you can create and share multilingual digital stories. Stories are written (and/or narrated) in 2 languages. Scribjab was created by two professors from Simon Fraser University (Kellen Toohey and Diane Dagenais) and is offered free of charge to users through a browser-based or mobile-based app (iTunes).
Not only do you write the story but you can record it aloud. This application is interdisciplinary, interactive and user friendly. The creators target elementary school students starting in grade 4. In fact, we can use Scribjab for all ages if we use appropriate scaffolding.
“ScribJab promotes the reading and writing of stories in all languages by allowing children to write their books in English and / or French and their native language. In addition, we provide a space where children can discuss their stories together in the language (s) they wish to use “(SFU, 2018, para 2). This approach supports engaging students own funds of knowledge and can have a positive impact on students’ social emotional well-being and literacy development.
The application and the website are free and easy to navigate. You can read books already published without having an account. Having students start by reading some of the existing books will allow them to understand the affordances of this app.
In order to get started writing stories, the teacher/user will need to create an account with Scribjab. As soon as that’s done, you can start creating projects or folders for each class.
Hi, I have an educator who is interested in learning more about ScribJab and which languages you support. Who can I pass their information too?
Hi Kit, Scribjab is a project developed by some faculty at SFU (not by me or my students). Here is some further info about the project. https://www.sfu.ca/education-research-hub/dialogue/digital-story-creation-with-scribjab-an-innovative-interactive.html As to additional languages, when I added the post highlighting scribjab to the scarfe sandbox blog, there were only stories in english and french. That said, because the user creating the story does their own typing and audio, any language for which you have a keyboard and can speak should be possible. I’d hoped to check their help resources but the ScribJab site says that it is currently down for maintenance. Your colleague may wish to login to scribjab.com and have a look around. Hope that helps. I have found this site valuable for language learners from the early years through more advance (for story sharing/publishing/creation).
Hello,
In previous years I have used Scribjab on our Chromebooks. When I try now it gives me an error message. Is the site no longer available?
Thanks!
Helen
Hi Helen,
It looks as though it is no longer functional. You could inquire at Simon Fraser University in their Faculty of Education. It was their project. Here is the original link to their work (it does say Page not found).
https://www.sfu.ca/education-research-hub/dialogue/digital-story-creation-with-scribjab-an-innovative-interactive.html
Sorry it no longer seems to be running. But best to email them just in case!