This week, I explored online picture book creation tools (or comic strip creators, although I completely disagree with that description.) Storybird is a cute website that features tons of artwork from uploaders from all around the world. You can use these artworks to create a picture book, a full chapter book, or even just a poem. Then you can share your story with others or even publish your story on the website for anyone to view.
Here is the link to the story I made using Storybird, which is the tale of a lonely young girl whose wish for a friend is granted by the Princess of Heaven. It was a fun experience to make the book, but I will say that it was a little difficult to find enough corresponding images to make a full story.
If I were to use this online picture book creation tool with students, it would be as a general writing project for intermediate level ESL students. I could use it to test students' story structure understanding by making sure students create a story with a beginning, middle, and end, including an obvious conflict. I would also be checking the students' use of punctuation when writing quotations in English (comma placement, quotation marks, proper placement of sentence ending punctuation markings, etc.)
Due to the difficulty I encountered finding enough coherent pictures to make a full story, I would not limit the students in any way other than the objectives I stated in the paragraph above. Students would be able to write about any topic of their choice using Storybird OR they could create a picture book with pictures from elsewhere.
