Apps for Storytelling   

January 10, 2013

Stories has always been one of the most popular mediums in the classroom to stimulate creativity and thinking process, providing opportunities for reflection, enhancing the learning experience both for the teachers and the students … and storytelling has never been that much fun and easy with all the mobile applications that we can use today!

SockPockets lets you record your own voice for 30 seconds to make sock puppets talk on your screen. You simply choose your sock puppet, the background and the props that you want to use. When you finish, you can save it or if you like you can directly upload it to YouTube to share the fun! You can ask our students to explain a word, to retell a short story or introduce themselves. They can tell jokes, sing a song or chant a rhyme. They can make two puppets talk at the same time and practice questions/answers or they can create their own dialogues. This app is available on iPhone and iPad.

StoryRobe is another mobile application that lets you add narration to your pictures. You choose your pictures and record your voice over it. The finished narration can be sent to YouTube or mailed to anyone. After downloading the app, you don’t need any connection unless you want to mail it or share on YouTube. Students can take a picture or choose a picture that they have taken previously and record their voices about it. It can be about their vacation, about their house, family or about their pets. This app is available on iPhone and iPad.

PuppetPals is an app in which you can create a puppet show with your own voice and share it with others. You can create your own puppet using your own pictures and you can create your own backgrounds as well. Then, you can create puppet shows by moving the puppets around as you are recording your voice. When you finish, you can publish your show as a movie to iMovie or YouTube. This tool is great for creating stories on different topics. This app is available only on iPad.

Fotobabble has always been one of my favourite web tools. It is great to have it as a mobile application as well. Fotobabble lets you record your voice over pictures. You choose your picture and speak into your microphone to record your voice. You can also enhance your photo with visual effects. When you finish, you can share your Fotobabble via Facebook, Twitter or email. Students can send real time talking postcards to each other; create birthday cards with your photo and picture. This app is available on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

StoryKit is another app that lets you create storybooks. You can write your own text or draw on the screen. If you like, you can attach pictures, record your voice and add sound effects. With the drag and drop feature, you can arrange the layout of your story including text boxes, images, and sound clips. When you finish, you can email the link of your story. The app is specially great for teachers to create stories for students on any topics.

Enjoy and come back for more apps!