I was introduced to Google Story Builder months ago, but needed time to reflect on it’s use, functionality, and alignment to the Common Core Standards and literary content in which I default to because of my passions. This is what I concluded:
- Story Builder is easy to use.
- It could be created alone or used collaboratively.
- The sharing capabilities make it accessible to an audience different than the traditional teacher.
- It has music choices and automatically plays in video form.
In my example, I focus on students summarizing difficult text and retelling a scene from Romeo and Juliet in their own words. These skills align with both the reading and writing standards and provide an alternative to simply summarizing the play on a piece of paper. Using Quicktime, or any other screen capture app, students could record their story and continue to edit and add different multimedia options to their end product.