"Top 10 Apps for Digital
Storytelling
Feb 15
Written by:
2/15/2012 8:47
PM
A while back I did a post on top sites for
Digital Storytelling. This has been a skill that is being taught in school
districts all around the world, and is a key for developing technology literacy.
With the recent wave of mobile devices and technologies, a giant step has been
taken in how students develop these skills (via touch screen) in a brand new way
.
Toontastic
- A wonderful
free iPad that allows children to create animated cartoon stories. They can
choose from stock characters or draw their own while animating them and
recording their voice for narration. Also, Toontastic's built-in story arc takes
students step-by-step on how to create a story.
i
Tell a Story
- A excellent free iPad that works very similarly to how
Garageband creates a podcast. A user uploads a photo and then can record their
voice for narration while adding stock sound effects.
Voice
Thread App
- A great free iPad/iPhone app that compliments the Voice Thread
very nicely for storytelling. A user can manage their Voice Thread account as
well as make digital stories by uploading photos and drawing/recording their
voice.
Story
Patch
- An iPad app ($2.99) that is ideal for digital storytelling. A person
can create a story from scratch or use one of their well-designed templates to
complete all the parts of a story.
Sock
Puppets
- A free iPad/iPhone app that is a lot of fun for kids to create
animated stories. This is done by selecting your sock, background, and props and
then recording your voice as the socks talk.
Art
Maker
- A wonderful free iPad app that allows children to create a digital
story from scratch. A user selects their background, characters, and props and
then moves them around the screen while recording.
Puppet
Pals
- A excellent free iPad app that lets users create a
"N
ew Philadelphia looked like a typical west-central Illinois pioneer town to travelers cresting the hill overlooking the place in the mid-1800s. Imagine villagers filling baskets with a bounty of apples, corn, and wheat, while chickens clucked and pigs rooted in nearby pens. Picture farmers hitching mules and oxen to carts filled with vegetables, fruit, and grain to sell at markets. Listen for loud clanging from the blacksmith's shop as hammers shaped hot metal into shoes for mules and horses. As in other frontier towns, smoke from cooking fires swirled from the dwellings that dotted small plots of land.
But New Philadelphia was not a typical pioneer town. It was the first town platted and registered by an African American before the American Civil War. A formerly enslaved man called "Free Frank" McWorter founded New Philadelphia in 1836 as a money-making venture to buy his family out of slavery. Census records and other historical documents tell us that New Philadelphia was a place where black and white villagers lived side by side, but we know that the town's dead lie buried in cemeteries separated by color.
By 1885, many villagers had moved away in search of jobs and better economic opportunities. Plows buried any material remains left behind, and grazing livestock and crops covered most of the site. By the 1940s, nothing of the town remained above ground. However, the town's descendants and neighboring communities did not forget New Philadelphia. Descendents continued to live in the area until the 1950s. Grace Matteson wrote "Free Frank" McWorter and the "Ghost Town" of New Philadelphia, Pike County, Illinois. Later, Lorraine Burdick remembered the town in New Philadelphia: Where I Lived. McWorter family descendants were members of the Negro History Movement led by Carter G. Woodson, and through their activities the story of Free Frank was kept alive. Helen McWorter Simpson, great granddaughter of Free Frank McWorter, wrote Makers of History. Juliet E. K. Wa