Topic: Reading for pleasure and exposing students to interactive digital stories.
Platform or tool: Book Creator
Rationale:
In my current school most students are familiar with reading digital stories through the apps Reading Eggs and Epic! which include some media aspects like audio narration however, they lack interactivity that allows the reader any control over the direction of the story. I often witness students repeatedly tapping their iPads to turn the page without reading the story. For this digital storytelling project I have chosen to retell the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood in the hope that by creating an interactive ‘choose your own adventure’ type story, students in years 1 and 2 will be more interested and engaged to read the text rather than just progressing through to the end. To help maintain the interests of the students, I plan to include at least two possible endings to the story.
I am using Book Creator because it has the required functionality of hyperlinking between different pages within the book and the ability to insert media. According to Campbell and Narayan (2017) Book Creator has its own platform that books can be published to, allowing readers to access the book without having to log in or be limited to viewing it in a PDF or video capacity. It also includes a ‘read to me’ option where the words are highlighted as the computer reads the book to the user, which Dobler (2013) suggests assists students to visually track text. I will also be using websites such as Flikr and Canva to help create the content of my story for a more pleasurable interactive reading experience.
References
Dobler, E. (2013). Looking beyond the screen: Evaluating the quality of digital books. Reading Today, 30(5), 20-21.
Campbell, M. & Narayan, S. (2017, July 26). How we created an interactive choose your own adventure book. The Book Creator Blog. https://bookcreator.com/2017/07/created-interactive-choose-adventure-book/
I’ve not heard of Book Creator before. Is it web-based (created, platformed and read online) or is it a downloadable program? Sounds interesting!
Thank you for your comment.
Book Creator is an app. There is a free version but it only allows you to create one book. My school pays for the full version which allows for multiple books to be created as well as more functionality. It’s great for primary schools. My students love using it.
I think this is a wonderful idea! I think reading for pleasure is such an underrated notion in school these days. It is positively associated with reading attainment and with the development of writing skills. I think students will really enjoy the interactive “chose your own adventure” aspect of your book.
Given that students can alter the narrative of the fairy tale, I think it may be a good idea to include simple comprehension tasks that allow students to justify why they chose a particular ending. This can be included at the end of the book or can be incorporated into the actual story. So as to not take away from the actual reading experience, students do not actually have to write or type their responses. Depending on how this resource will be used in the classroom (whole class, groups, pairs, etc), students may simply ponder on their answers or answer them in a “think, pair, share” type situation.
Really looking forward to seeing your final project!
Thank you for your comment.
I like your idea of including something at the end of the book for students to reflect on. I think a low stakes no pressure optional reflection on the ending they chose would work well. I am playing around with the idea of having some question prompts or possibly a hyperlink to a surveymonkey to get student feedback about their engagement in the story.
Hi Belinda,
I think your idea of an interactive story using Book Creator is wonderful. The interactivity feature will be highly motivating for readers to repeatedly engage with the text (Yokota & Teale, 2014, p. 584), hopefully encouraging students to re-read to see how the alternative ending plays out. I was also thinking that perhaps you could have students come up with their own ending and instructions on how to create their own Book Creator book, depending on the age group.
I wasn’t aware that you could hyperlink pages, which will certainly help me in my project, as I also plan to use Book Creator and Canva. You may already know this, but I was pleased to discover that these websites combine incredibly well, as outlined in the instructions here. I look forward to seeing how your storyline and product comes together – and I am secretly hoping that Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma has a devious side.
All the best,
Amy
References
Yokota, J., & Teale, W. H. (2014). Picture books and the digital world: Educators making informed choices. The Reading Teacher, 67(8), 577-585. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1262