‘South Africa Library Week’ – another great creative writing guest post from @apeters522 from Parklands College

This is another guest post from Anthony Peters @apeters522 who is a very innovative English High School teacher from Parklands College in CapeTown who delights in using technology in the classroom creatively. We are always delighted to publish posts by Anthony. You can view all his previous posts on our blog via the Anthony Peters label under ‘Quick links’ on the right side.  Grade 7 enjoyed a whole programme with a spectrum of activities for South Africa’s Library Week. The foci of thes...

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Creative Writing #2: Get your classes signed up and start using Storybird

Submitted by Fiona Beal Yesterday’s post was an introductory post about this great, free application, Storybird available from https://storybird.com.  Today we look at the signing up process and how to get started, 1. Sign up your class The first thing you’ll need to do is add your class or your classes as in my case. This takes a wee bit of time but once it is done its done. Your students won’t need email addresses. At your next lesson the class will each log in on their temporary passwo...

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Creative Writing #1: Use Storybird.com to give your students an unforgettable, free, online writing experience

Submitted by Fiona Beal If you want to give your class a great writing experience and you have computer devices for your class to use why not try using Storyboard http://storybird.com/? Storybird is one of the most popular free tools for digital storytelling in schools around the globe. Wondering what it is? Storybird is a free (for schools) online story creating program that lets one make visual stories in seconds. One of the things that sets Storybird apart from other creative writing applications i...

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Digital storytelling– Have you tried using Zooburst?

Submitted by Fiona Beal I have known about the storytelling tool Zooburst (http://zooburst.com/)  for some time, but this week it was brought to my attention again by Warren Sparrow from Rondebosch Preparatory School who sent me an example he had created. Zooburst is available as a webtool, an Ipad app and it seems that Android. is working on developing an app as well. What is Zooburst? Zooburst is a fun, free,  3D pop-up book website that would be easy for a young student to use and ...

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Creative Writing #14: Have you explored using Kerpoof for digital storytelling?

Kerpoof as a writing tool was brought to my attention by one of our SchoolNet members, Warren Sparrow from Rondebosch Boys Prep. He has a post about Kerpoof on his blog (https://www.schoolnet.org.za/2013/06/kerpoof.html) and he has even created the first part of his own fairytale. What is Kerpoof? This is what it says on the Kerpoof website http://www.kerpoof.com/ “Kerpoof’s multimedia software is used by kids worldwide to create original artwork, animated movies, stories, greeting cards a...

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Creative Writing #13: An African Storybook Project Report back from Stirling Primary in East London

Here is another class hard at work creating stories for the African Storybook Project.  I have written about the African Storybook Project in a number of posts. The website is hopefully going live in July with stories written by South Africa teachers. If you would like your class to write stories suitable for Grade 3 students across Africa to read, please submit them by 21 June and use the guidelines found in this post. There’s still time to submit a story suitable for a Grade 3 reader for the Afr...

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UtellStory looks like an amazing digital storytelling application

Submitted by Fiona Beal I am always on the lookout for interesting ways to get our students reading, writing, or creating in one way or another. Today I came across UtellStory and I must say I really want to try out this application. I have embedded their example of what a Utellstory can look like from the opening page of their website (http://www.utellstory.com) below.   How to create a story UtellStory has a ‘how to’ video on You Tube which explains how to go about creati...

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More story starter sites to inspire your students to write

Submitted by Fiona Beal One of the most popular posts to date on this blog has been one outlining a number of sites that can be used for starting stories ‘10 Story Starter sites to get your students writing’. I thought it was time to add to the list. The Internet is full of the most amazing tools to encourage our students to  write. To this end I created a Scoop.it containing the posts I find as I do research http://www.scoop.it/t/reading-and-writing-in-primary-school  ...

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10 places to find reading and writing resources for primary school learners – part 1

Submitted by Fiona Beal One of my passions is developing reading and writing in kids. Nowadays the web is full of the most amazing sites – is it any wonder that some of us feel that free internet should be a basic human right!  Today I came across some amazing new sites and thought they would be great to share in a blog post. I have written two previous posts about reading resources for primary school learners so would like to add the links to those in case you are interested in looking them up: ...

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Poetry sites that will get words flowing!

Submitted by Fiona Beal One of the things I love doing with a class is writing poetry. The students come up with the most interesting ideas and words. Playing with words always gives me a thrill. There are so many free interactive sites available that can make the teacher’s task even easier, and the learners experience more memorable.    1. ETTC (Educational Technology Training Centre) – Instant Poetry Forms http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/newpoem.htm This is a really great poetry sit...

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