storybird for libraries
DESCRIPTION
E-magine ~ Digital Families: As part of the Family Learning Festival in October & November and beyond, Families from Lancashire are taking part in the Digital Families 'E-magine', an online storytelling activity. We are using Storybird to create shared stories and this is a quick guide to using the site.TRANSCRIPT
Family Learning Festival
Activities using Storybird
www.lancashire.gov.uk
Digital Familiese-magine
Getting Started
Go to http://storybird.com/
If you haven’t already seen the intro video, now would be a good time to click ‘Tour’
and watch it (audio required).
Log in
Click on ‘Sign in’ and enter the username & password given to you by your library
You will immediately be asked to change the password to one you’ve chosen
Make sure you carefully note/remember the new password
You can now start using Storybird.
First, you’ll see your account settings
You are currently registered as a ‘Student’ in a ‘Class’ created by the Library
If you enjoy using Storybird for the library’s e-magine session, you
can always go to ‘create a personal account’
afterwards, but just leave this for now.
But, please do have a go at uploading a small
picture (avatar) to identify you/your family.
On the ‘You’ tab, you’ll be able to see any story you are working on
Plus, any you’ve already done and your favourite stories by others
On the ‘Class’ tab, you will be able to see who else is taking part in Digital Families e-magine
and view the stories they’ve created.
Your ‘Class’ is private and you, your details and your work can’t be seen by anyone
outside the class
And no-one except you can see your stories until
you decide to ‘publish’ them
At the end, Lancashire Library would like to publish the best stories on our website
Before you start a story, you should go to ‘Read’ and
have a look at other people’s stories
Starting your story
Ones you like you can ‘heart’ and add to your
Reading List
Look at stories written by and for different age groups and with different subjects
This will help you decide what sort of story you want to write
To begin a story, you must first choose the pictures you want to use to illustrate it
Create
There are two ways of choosing artwork
By
artist
Or
Pictorial
theme
Once you have begun to create a story, you cannot change or add to the choice of pictures
Important tip
So make sure there are enough by your chosen artist/theme before you
start
There are hundreds of themes. Keep clicking ‘Reload’ to see more. The bigger the tag the
more pictures are behind it
And start your story with the results of the search
Or you can search ‘Art’ to find pictures
Once you’ve chosen an artist or theme, click to start a Storybird
As you are working as part of the ‘Class’, you’ll be asked if the Storybird is for an assignment
Click the arrow next to ‘Choose one’, then click on the assignment name and then ‘Jump in!’
below it
The Story Maker will now open and you’ll see the blank first page ready for your story with
the artwork you’ve chosen at the side
If you choose an artist or theme with a lot of pictures, you’ll see they are all piled up
Important tip
You can move from side to side and spread them out
Important tip
When you click on a photo, it is brought to the top of the pile and a larger copy is displayed
To start your story, choose a picture and drag it onto the page
You can choose top or bottom, left or right
When you let go, it will fill the greyed area
And a box and cursor will appear ready for you to start writing your story
You can drag the picture to change the layout
Or click on it to remove it
At the bottom of the Story Maker screen you can see the whole book
You can add pages and also rearrange them by dragging
Or you can remove a page
Storybird automatically saves periodically
But, it’s a good idea to click on ‘Save’ every so often, just for safety
As you are writing your story
You’ll see Storybird underlines in red any words you have got wrong, so you can
change them
Before you finish and close down the session, don’t forget to fill in the story’s cover
Just click on the cover
It will automatically show the same picture as Page 1, but you can change this
Then just type in your title
If you want to see what your story looks like, click on the ‘full screen’ button at the middle at
the top
Just press the ‘escape’
key to go back to normal
If you want to leave your story and come back to it later, just click on ‘Menu’ and choose
‘Save and Close’
To continue your story, go to ‘You’ and your ‘unpublished’ stories and click ‘Jump In’
When you are happy that you’ve finished the story, you can publish it
In Story Maker, choose ‘Menu’ and
‘Publish this Storybird’
You can change the cover or title now, if
you want to
You will then need to fill in some details and click ‘Publish’
If you need to, you can still go back and change or add to your story after its published
Click on the published story
you want to change
And choose ‘Edit story’ at the bottom
Once your story has been published, it can be seen and read by other people taking part in
‘E-magine’ (in your ‘Class’)
Or you can share it by email
Click on ‘Send to a friend’
And Lancashire Library can publish your story on our website
Sharing your story making
In Storybird, it is also possible to have someone else share in the writing of the
story with you.
Open Story Maker and start writing your story. When you’re ready for someone else to join in, click ‘Menu’ and ‘Invite someone’
You can then choose someone else who’s taking part in ‘E-magine’ (in your ‘Class’)
And send them a message to invite them to share in writing your
story
The person you invite will then get a message
And can ‘Jump in’ and take over writing a part of the story
When they’ve done, they can go to ‘Menu’ and
‘Switch turns’ to hand the story making back to you
They send you a message back and you
can take up the turn
Only two people can work on a story together at a time
Important tip
Either of you can publish the story, but make sure you don’t publish until you’ve absolutely finished, because you won’t be able to share the writing after publishing
Need more help?
There are Step-by-Step video tutorial available on You Tube (audio required)
http://bit.ly/storybirdvideo
Need more help?
Click on ‘Help’ to find lots of advice on all aspects of Storybird