Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Hooray! Email finally works for Story Kit

Yesterday was one of those days when I LOVED teaching and yes I am screaming!  The students were so excited as Mr. Mark, our TST, helped the students send me their Story Kit story.  It was so much fun to see their faces light up as I had my email account open on the Smartboard, and they saw their name come through with the story. Here are some of the comments you could here throughout the class.

-Hooray now I can write more stories because I can send them to Mrs. Caplin.
-I want to see my friends stories.
-Look at all the amazing titles.
-It was well worth the wait-but the wait about killed me.

As their stories loaded into my email, I opened them up so the students could see each others. That is where the amazing conversations started including some great questions

-How did you do that graphic?
-Look how Bobby used figurative language.
-How did you mix the art tool with imported graphic?
-I can visualize that in my mind from the BIG words.
-Can we add background color to all the slides?
-Look at the lead that Cindy wrote-I am hooked.
-I went to the same place on vacation I think I will write my own story.

I now have all their digital stories on my own laptop.  I will be able to assess them digitally and my goal is not to have to print them off.  Also the coolest part in my opinion is next week,  Mark is going to teach me how to download the stories to my district web page.  We are going to put them on a password protected link so all the students will be able to see each other stories.  What an amazing tool for them to see their friends stories as well as the parents will be able to read other students stories.  I am so excited that the entire writing process from start to finish was completed on their iPod--can you tell?? On a side note, I would love to share some of the stories with the blogging world so I will be working on learning that process-keep checking back.

6 comments:

  1. This sounds wonderful - is Story Kit web based or did your district have to purchase software for it?

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  2. It is a free app for iPods and the kids loved it and now that we have all the glitches taken care of I think the kids are going to crazy with it writing any type of stories. My goal is to begin using it with science for review of big ideas. Thanks for your comment and question. Here is the link:
    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/storykit/id329374595?mt=8

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  3. How exciting for you. It is really fun for me to read your blog. Sometimes I feel like I am experiencing it with you.
    Keep up the good work. Just imagine all the possibilities you are opening up for your students.
    Kathy B.

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  4. Hi,
    I'm a school librarian in Boston and one of our classes is going to use Story Kit to create their own math word problem book. We have 12 iPods that rotate throughout the building so I want to be able to set up the iPods so that the students can email their stories to the teacher, just as you have. Can you share how your tech guy was able to set this up or put me in contact with him? My email is lstroessner at bostonrenaissance dot org. Thank you very much!

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  5. Hi Laura, Glad you left me a comment I will work on how we did that. Honestly Mr. Mark, our TST, did it for me. PS. I LOVE Boston and have visited there 10 times with our 5th graders from Dublin, OH.

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  6. Laura: The easiest way would be to set up GMAIL accounts and then delete the account after they have emailed to the teacher This would allow them to do outside emails so it would need to be closely watched. Our district tech coordinator set up my email account and even Mr. Mark needed help with this one. Thanks for asking.

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