Storytellers can bring life to words as they weave together details that create beautiful imagery in your mind and now there’s a digital tool that can bring those images to life. Storybird is a cloud-based tool that allows students and teachers to select from a variety of high-quality images and artworks to tell a story. Be inspired to create new worlds and stories based on beautiful professional artistry provided through Storybird or find images that resonate with a story that’s been waiting for an illustrator. 
Images as story prompts can help inspire ideas and creative expression in learners. This can be accomplished using printed or projected images in the classroom. With Storybird, sudents can select different types of images provided by professional artists that vary by style and theme. They can read thousands of student-created stories or professional stories while also contributing to this literary community. Younger students can create picture books while older students can publish their novels while also engaging in peer editing from other readers. Students could also create stories to share between buddy classes in the school where early readers can read their stories to older buddies while older buddies assist with creating the stories online. Multilingual students will feel empowered by creating bilingual stories to share or co-creating with peers while learning about a topic. Another option provided by Storybird is to publish the book in print for students to take home to their families for an additional cost.
If students are using Storybird to create digital stories, this is a great step to practice storyboarding, scriptwriting, and pairing appropriate imagery for their creations. Storybird is also a great entry-level for creating digital content because it doesn’t require student emails and its platform is without technical challenges thereby leaving more time for the imaginative creation of content.
- Create an Educator Account (at one time this was free access, in Sept 2023 the fee structure seems to have changed and the free account access is now quite limited)
- Create a class and end date for that class.
- Add students without needing student emails (remember student privacy).
- Optional: You can link google classroom accounts and parent emails
- Assign a project or create a fundraiser using Storybird (optional)
- Let students login and create their first book! (download the student invitations with login info)
- Let them be inspired by artwork OR have them visit the how-to guides for a more scaffolded approach.
Note** Teachers and individual users can be rewarded with “crowns” based on how often they submit stories. These can be redeemed for specific guides and other digital downloads from Storybird. NB: Always carefully consider individual needs and differences, class climate etc before undertaking any kind of reward system in the classroom!
