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

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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 (<a href="http://wsparrow.blogspot.com/2013/06/kerpoof.html">http://wsparrow.blogspot.com/2013/06/kerpoof.html</a>) and he has even created the first part of his own fairytale.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What is Kerpoof?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what it says on the Kerpoof website </span><a href="http://www.kerpoof.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.kerpoof.com/</a><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Kerpoof's multimedia software is used by kids worldwide to create original artwork, animated movies, stories, greeting cards and more. The site is meant to be fun, but we're serious about its educational value. Elementary and middle school teachers can use Kerpoof in many ways to enhance classroom activities while meeting a range of educational standards.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrWriKMBGJt6ix4jrQUtG41_HsBrz7KT-0OwrC2XG_z1qizkcSRPh2LtKmW9DudgPPa77TGQ-T-1hbKcl5fWo7cvbWe561WNXkYJimenQQFix13OBZLYkie04PsYchOccc5iCu_boMNu9/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What does a Kerfoof video look like?</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what Warren Sparrow writes on his blog. “<i>Make your own animations. This is SUPER COOL and easy to use.Ideal for younger learners! Click below to see my start of a fairytale</i>”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://wsparrow.blogspot.com/2013/06/kerpoof.html">http://wsparrow.blogspot.com/2013/06/kerpoof.html</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks for this Warren. I have put this into a Screencastomatic video for easier viewing on the blog. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="498" scrolling="no" src="http://screencast-o-matic.com/embed?sc=cI16Q4VwjA&w=420&v=3" width="420"></iframe></span></div>

30 Days of Writing Creative writing Web tools 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 po...

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Creative Writing #8: Try using Storybird with its beautiful art for inspired writing sessions

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Storybird can be accessed at <a href="http://storybird.com/">http://storybird.com/</a>. This is a wonderful free creative writing site where you can create your own stories using interesting and beautiful images provided by a variety of illustrators. These can be summarised as 'short, art-inspired stories' and they are g<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: en-za;">reat for writing collaboratively or for individual writing. </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 17.3pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Teachers can get a free account for each class with easy access which is a great timesaver. U</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 17.3pt; text-indent: -18pt;">sers can share their stories by sending a URL via e-mail, or they can purchase them.</span></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><b style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; line-height: 17.3pt; text-indent: -18pt;">How to use in the classroom</b><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt; text-indent: -18pt;">*Excite the students about becoming a published author<br /><span style="line-height: 17.3pt; text-indent: -18pt;">*Explain that their work will be read by people all over the world</span></span><br /><span style="line-height: 17.3pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt; text-indent: -18pt;">*Have the writings be completed before they publish to the web... if they already have a draft of a story. It becomes easier to chunk their sentences to import into different pages to represent the given art work.</span></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; line-height: 17.3pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.75pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />Tutorials</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Storybird demo.movie</b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span></div></div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LWrslLyuXk8" width="420"></iframe></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWrslLyuXk8" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.98958396911621px;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWrslLyuXk8</a><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20.98958396911621px;"> </b></div><h3><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Super Storytelling with StoryBird</span><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/T00YjRBIcIw" width="420"></iframe></h3></div></div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T00YjRBIcIw"><span style="font-size: small;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T00YjRBIcIw</span></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>An example of  a story</b></span><br /><a href="http://storybird.com/books/examples-of-friendship-love-and-family-in-nature/">Examples of friendship, love and family in nature</a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrxgI-i95lh_RQSBlImGNIwKOyzULmeTTPRAu3KU1PAqWXY4HIAKMTqaqb3_1uFig5Yr6Vl-jbwVbYnKAxt8x-1QXGcuEN0O9eV9QR7vfWr99q_yepT_92jRl4MkxYUfrqjRI3oltd3UdH/s1600-h/image%25255B4%25255D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOYb9U000MF4alS0UTOLhBZdoLQ42Tc6rJrLy1IOD0SqRHxXAxbLP7I6R1kVaGDoH7UEtJTpOBCIYudCLO8Zpy5a-OrIJoWTf9R5kkCv4wfGBM5GYSv8JXpXd1vFiukk131bu-6M3gIKLN/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="372" /></a> <br /><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Further Reading</span></b><br /><a href="http://www.edutopia.org/blog/storybird-new-teacher-boot-camp-lisa-dabbs">http://www.edutopia.org/blog/storybird-new-teacher-boot-camp-lisa-dabbs</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do try Storybird with your class. It is a great way of encouraging reluctant writer to write and feel very proud of their achievements. </span></div></div>

30 Days of Writing Creative Writing #8: Try using Storybird with its beautiful art for inspired writing sessions

Storybird can be accessed at  http://storybird.com/ . This is a wonderful free creative writing site where you can create your own stories u...

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Creative Writing #7: Use YouTube stories to inspire your class to write...

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are many ways to get your class to write stories. This idea is to use YouTube videos to inspire writing. You could use these in different ways such as:</span><br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Talk about the structure of a story in terms that your age group understands</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Show a video and then discuss the structure of the story or </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">analyse the stages of a story</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watch the story and ask your class to rewrite it and change it. </span></li></ul><br /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>1. Owl Stories by Martin Waddell</b></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJe0WupukAw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJe0WupukAw</a><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sJe0WupukAw" width="420"></iframe></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>2. Handa’s Surprise by Eileene Browne</b></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyIV_xYi0as">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyIV_xYi0as</a><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XyIV_xYi0as" width="420"></iframe></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>3. Handa’s Hen by Eileen Browne</b></span><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyIV_xYi0as">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyIV_xYi0as</a><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-9FZqX1CBqE" width="420"></iframe><br /></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></strong><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">An example of how to use these videos</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's make a start by watching </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘<b>Owl Stories</b>’ by Martin Waddell and then let's analyse it. Let’s see how a problem was brought in and resolved to make this beautiful story so appealing. I’ll use the following story structure idea, namely the idea of asking '<i>What If</i>' and to keep asking '<i>What if</i>?' until a plot emerges. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>What if question</u>? 'What if the mother of new baby owls didn't come back from hunting for food?'  Keep asking related 'What if' questions and slowly a plot emerges as follows</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. <i>Beginning</i>: The babies are in their nest<br />2. <i>Middle</i>. A problem is introduced <br />    a) Mother Owl doesn’t come back.<br />    b) The baby owls start searching in the dark woods<br />    c) They discuss where they think Mommy could be<br />3. <i>The end</i>: The problem is resolved – Mommy comes back and finds them.  </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>A task</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why not take one of the other stories and see if you can analyse them to see if there was a problem or conflict introduced and resolved and how it impacted the story</span></div></div>

30 Days of Writing Creative Writing #7: Use YouTube stories to inspire your class to write...

There are many ways to get your class to write stories. This idea is to use YouTube videos to inspire writing. You could use these in differ...

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Creative writing #6: Have you explored using Little Bird Tales for writing?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKLHtKyDSgPVseQzK9sLbjEgEiNDgc9tOIsp9FfQWos5YemF8nCT95jxtc5u8YLztfWcA29_6QD5VKI28PDdEinW7Ts-cD1QuDKsJn7DO9HUOsU4V_55Fi8S1c87TCDDIyBElhs1mdKCk/s1600/Little+bird+tales.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKLHtKyDSgPVseQzK9sLbjEgEiNDgc9tOIsp9FfQWos5YemF8nCT95jxtc5u8YLztfWcA29_6QD5VKI28PDdEinW7Ts-cD1QuDKsJn7DO9HUOsU4V_55Fi8S1c87TCDDIyBElhs1mdKCk/s1600/Little+bird+tales.JPG" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.3pt;">Little Bird Tales (</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://littlebirdtales.com/">http://littlebirdtales.com</a>)</span> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">has quickly become a favourite web 2.0 tool of mine for writing in the primary school, mostly because it’s so easy to create a high-quality product and you can draw your own pictures online plus add narration. The web site allows users to create podcasts with images — basically, narrated slideshows — in just three steps:</span><br /><ol style="line-height: 17.3pt;"><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Users can upload photos to their Bird Tale or they can use an embedded drawing tool to draw images. Older students can add text to their images.</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Users then record narration to go with each image if they wish.</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, users share their Bird Tales, by sending a URL via e-mail.</span></span></li></ol><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 23.0625px;">The name has a babyish sound but I have fund that this does not deter primary school age children. This video shows how </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">Little Bird got his name: </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svnNCe5OD8k&feature=player_embedded" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svnNCe5OD8k&feature=player_embedded</a></div><div><br /></div><b style="color: #333333; font-size: x-large; line-height: 23.05555534362793px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watch this demo from Little bird tales</span></b><br /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 18pt;"><div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">Here is a demo from YouTube showing how easy it is to us.</span><br /><div><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/P3CcWUtOiBk" width="420"></iframe> </div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.05555534362793px;"><b><br /></b></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.0625px;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P3CcWUtOiBk">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P3CcWUtOiBk</a></span></span></span><br /><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>An instruction video from Little Bird Tales</b></span><br /><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uEnhabCzrvo" width="420"></iframe><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span><i style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.0625px;"> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEnhabCzrvo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEnhabCzrvo</a></span></span></i><br /><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.05555534362793px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Example of how a teacher created a story using Little Bird Tales</span></b></span><br /><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This comes from Juanit Oosthuizen from Elkanah House Cape Tiwn's lovely Foundation Phase blog  </span></span><a href="http://technoboffins.wordpress.com/">http://technoboffins.wordpress.com</a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcea63; border-color: #F26122; border-style: solid; border-width: 4px; display: inline-block; font-family: \'lucida grande\',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; margin: 1px; padding: 2px;"><a href="http://www.littlebirdtales.com/tales/view/story_id/21440/"><img alt="littlebirdtales.com cover image" height="280" src="http://www.littlebirdtales.com/images/embed/stories/c/e/3/e/21440/image.jpg" title="Ben die Boer" width="400" /></a><br /><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5010076453548563484" http:="" story_id="" tales="" view="" www.littlebirdtales.com="">Click to view my tale.</a></li><li style="display: inline; float: right;"><img alt="littlebirdtales.com logo" src="http://www.littlebirdtales.com/images/embed/logo/lbt_logo.png" /></li></ul></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 17.3pt; margin-bottom: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://www.littlebirdtales.com/tales/view/story_id/21440/">http://www.littlebirdtales.com/tales/view/story_id/21440/</a><br /><br /><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Example of a story made with Little Bird Tales</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">This comes from the blog </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 23.0625px;"><a href="http://berryart.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/a-little-bird-told-me/">http://berryart.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/a-little-bird-told-me/</a></span></i><br /><br /><div style="background-color: #fcea63; border-color: #F26122; border-style: solid; border-width: 4px; display: inline-block; font-family: \'lucida grande\',tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif; margin: 1px; padding: 2px;"><a href="http://littlebirdtales.com/tales/view/story_id/17927/"><img alt="littlebirdtales.com cover image" height="280" src="http://littlebirdtales.com/images/embed/stories/1/7/0/2/17927/image.jpg" title="Color Dance" width="400" /></a><br /><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><a href="http://littlebirdtales.com/images/embed/logo/lbt_logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="littlebirdtales.com logo" border="0" src="http://littlebirdtales.com/images/embed/logo/lbt_logo.png" style="cursor: move;" /></a><li style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5010076453548563484" http:="" littlebirdtales.com="" story_id="" tales="" view="">Click to view my tale.</a></li><li style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5010076453548563484" http:="" littlebirdtales.com="" story_id="" tales="" view=""></a><a href="http://littlebirdtales.com/tales/view/story_id/17927/">http://littlebirdtales.com/tales/view/story_id/17927/</a> </li><li style="display: inline; float: right;"></li></ul></div><b style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 18pt;"><div style="line-height: 17.3pt;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 17.3pt;">How Little Bird Tales is accessed</span></b></span></div><ol style="line-height: 17.3pt; text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">Teachers can easily create a FREE account and begin creating tales. They can have all their students create tales under a single account, but the site also allows teachers to create separate FREE accounts for each student. These accounts are always connected to the teachers’ account, and the website is built to ensure student privacy since so many younger kids use it.</span></li><li><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">The website asks users to create and use a “school code” so teachers and students from the same school can be grouped together. Teachers can’t access Bird Tales from another class unless it’s been shared with them, but it allows teachers to see who else in their school is using the tool and how often. This is helpful in terms of finding on-site teachers who can offer support.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">License</span></li></ol><div style="line-height: 17.3pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17.3pt;">Try Little Bird Tales today and see what you think. </span></div></div></div></div>

30 Days of Writing Creative writing #6: Have you explored using Little Bird Tales for writing?

Little Bird Tales ( http://littlebirdtales.com )   has quickly become a favourite web 2.0 tool of mine for writing in the primary school, mo...

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30 days of writing #5: What is Creative Commons Licensing?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUXtijLe2fCyoOwWQAlCJlyoojFtkJtKvMQS6UDF2E0yJOTd8GTULzVaOBCDjgyn1FPOCqtVDxnljy8feNPfZqWoEPQ35n8zAVB1A7G-pxjJFb7iZrKuQhVICqFrxLniMROw3Sx-UM20eu/s1600-h/image%25255B10%25255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="89" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikDJvlxB8uBJG202A7Q4-0scleqIkddgDLOd_WxjXTlOBOeKfGzj4dNqQTT3Z6xczNx4p9wOo2lXKdNkB-rCtzcVcWGF0ncfkzuuVEJohtF9mC-uBJ1ENdT44jgZ7MhgVihQQqZNZWdneY/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="240" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How much do you know about the ins and outs of posting something you have created on the Internet? Can anyone use it and share it? Can you use and share anything someone else has posted?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Introducing Copyright on the web</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The African Storybook team felt that it was important to learn about free licensing on the web right at the beginning of this course. Licensing tells others what they can and can't do with anything you put on the web. Basically, when you put something on the web it is copyright and officially no-one should use it. But if you want people to use your work in any way it you need to say something to give permission.  This applies to the stories we'll be donating to the African Storybook Project. We need to put a specific free license on them (very simple to do) to give other teachers and Grades 1-3 children in Africa permission to create a new story from them, translate them, make them easier or more difficult etc. But the original story will still be there on the web in its entirety. You will be the only one who can actually sell your story if you should want to. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><strong><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Creative Commons Licensing</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The licensing we are talking about is called Creative Commons licensing.  This video gives a great introduction to licensing on the web and shows six Creative Commons licenses one could choose from.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mAk9H1N8beU" width="420"></iframe><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAk9H1N8beU">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAk9H1N8beU</a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are the six licenses. . </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRRcP4N2mpwyK041kGgzR9swaOMNA6DciZzIIg6qaSoZQ-eSkFRrWma0Zn7iUD_sMMhhpNhdgk8Nvrw24iq0Pn6Obvb8csFURc8vY56jJdkcVIsMTd8qgvw40145LxSrw4N0lNsw9OZoG2/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is how they look in their official form – the license choice can just be copied and pasted on to something one creates and it’s done. It is as simple as that. </span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhTw9ArsIprPKziyAYxQ4lenN2-t9sn5L-DZUKlWvqPtXSkXqDRapHjySAtH3i-c2jWlSUwFc2Ru77VFFGJWai0iobCmsm8YK6gSk4Z3n4TETr8JyRDOpARSQ83qo4TKWBdGA7TrQd3Wx9/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></strong><strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">An example - Using images on the web</span></strong><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s take the example of using images on the web. Can we simply just find a picture in Google and use it as if it was our own on the web? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Generally, permission to use images ranges from pictures that are in the public domain (anyone can use them) to images that are copyright and require permission to use. Creative Commons licenses grant permission in advance. All Creative Commons licenses require 'attribution' (meaning you have to credit the person who created the item). Most images copyright online are covered by Creative Commons licensing. This means that some sites allow you to use their images but you need to give attribution to them. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <br /><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">How do you find out which creative works are covered by this licensing?</span></b><br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This website shows you how to use Creative Commons to find free images, audio and video for your website etc</span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">: </b><a href="http://search.creativecommons.org/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://search.creativecommons.org/</a></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take a look at the video below – it explains really well how to go about searching for something with a Creative Commons license. This video explains the website mentioned above - </span><a href="http://search.creativecommons.org/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://search.creativecommons.org/</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. </span></li></ul><br /><div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YvsbJaJeFGY" width="420"></iframe></div><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvsbJaJeFGY" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvsbJaJeFGY</a></div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlNM1Ak95oU"><span style="background-color: yellow; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>How do you add a license to your own work?</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you open <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">http://creativecommons.org/ </a>you will see a link to start the process of putting one of the licenses on to your work. As the website says, "<i>There is no registration to use the Creative Commons licenses. Licensing a work is as simple as selecting which of the six licenses best meets your goals, and then marking your work in some way so that others know that you have chosen to release the work under the terms of that license. Our license-choosing tool can help you select the right license</i>." </span><br /><br /><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What is the public domain?</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes people wish for a piece of their own work to be freely available to everyone to use with no strings attached, and put the work in the public domain. This isn't very hard to do — the copyright holder merely has to make a statement that they release all rights to the work. Once this irrevocable act is complete they no longer have any power over how the work is used since it is then owned by the public as a whole. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Granting_work_into_the_public_domain">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Granting_work_into_the_public_domain</a> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When it comes to the public domain, there is no catch. If a book, song, movie, or artwork is in the public domain, then it is not protected by intellectual property laws (copyright, trademark, or patent laws)—which means it’s free for you to use without permission. This would include works and inventions whose copyright has expired due to age or lack of renewal. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>Saide’s guide to using copyright</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saide (South African Institute of Distance Education) who is adminstering this project has a very good guide to licensing which they call ‘The OER Africa Copyright and licensing toolkit’. It can be found here":</span><br /><a href="http://www.oerafrica.org/copyright/CopyrightandLicencingToolkit/tabid/1781/Default.aspx"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.oerafrica.org/copyright/CopyrightandLicencingToolkit/tabid/1781/Default.aspx</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">  </span><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>Explore royalty free resources</strong></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fortunately for us there are loads of resources that are freely available to us. Here are just a few. </span><br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/12/08/the-best-places-to-get-royalty-free-music-sound-effects/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Larry Ferlazzo</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> - The Best Places To Get Royalty-Free Music & Sound Effects from Larry Ferlazzo</span><a href="http://www.photl.com/en/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Photl.com</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> has 160,000 copyright-free images available.</span><a href="http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/10/11/the-best-online-sources-for-images/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Larry Ferlazzo</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Best online sources for images</span><a href="http://www.phillipmartin.info/clipart/homepage.htm" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Free clipart</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Phil Martin’s collection</span></li><li><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wikimedia Commons</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (4 million images in the public domain)</span></li><li><a href="http://www.freeimages.co.uk/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Free Images</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (6000 stock photos, and they require you to credit them as the source)</span></li><li><a href="http://worldimages.sjsu.edu/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">World Images</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (80,000 photos from the California State University IMAGE project, under a non-commercial  CC license)</span></li><li><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ELT Pics</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (Images taken by teachers for teachers, collected via Twitter and stored on Flickr, under a non-commercial CC license)</span></li><li><a href="http://photopin.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PhotoPin</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (a search engine that finds Creative Commons images)</span></li><li><a href="http://www.wylio.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wylio</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Search engine for CC images for bloggers</span></li><li><a href="http://www.photoxpress.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PhotoeXpress</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- lengthy registration process but you get 10 free quality stock images a day with a search engine and you don't have to attribute.</span></li><li><a href="http://ccmixter.org/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CCMixter.org</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Great songs, music that is Creative Commons! Just give attribution</span></li><li><a href="http://www.freesound.org/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FreeSound</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Free sound files and clips for use!</span></li><li><a href="http://www.soundzabound.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Soundzabound</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- royalty free music library</span></li></ul></div></div>

30 Days of Writing 30 days of writing #5: What is Creative Commons Licensing?

How much do you know about the ins and outs of posting something you have created on the Internet? Can anyone use it and share it? Can you u...

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30 days of writing #4: Have you spoken to your students about Online Safety/Digital Citizenship?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flamingtext.com/" target="_top"><br /><img alt="Logo Design by FlamingText.com" border="0" src="http://blog.flamingtext.com/blog/2013/04/22/flamingtext_com_1366656308_948072740.png" title="Logo Design by FlamingText.com" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Logo Design by <a href="http://www.flamingtext.com/">FlamingText.com</a></span></i> </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When practising online digital writing or digital storytelling it is useful to consider issues around online safety (or Digital Citizenship as it is called) especially when working with students. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>Digital Writing</u>: the art and practice of preparing documents primarily by computer and often for online delivery.<br /><u>Digital Storytelling</u>: </span><span style="text-indent: -0.38in;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Digital Storytelling refers to using digital tools for writing stories</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A consideration of online safety is always good place to start now that the world is becoming increasingly digital, and connectedness with others via social media grows.  The Internet is an incredible resource – one of the greatest inventions of mankind in my opinion -  but the main thing for anyone to realise is that once one starts working online they develop a digital footprint and an online reputation. Best is to keep it good right from the start.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So it is a good idea to now and again chat to your students about the significance of a ‘digital footprint’, including what things are appropriate to post online, how to protect your identity and ways to interact with others in an online space.  </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>Useful informative blog posts about online safety</strong> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1) Jacqui Murray has a whole list of useful sites for teaching <a href="http://askatechteacher.wordpress.com/great-websites-for-kids/digital-citizenship/">Digital Citizenship</a> to students of all ages. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2) For older students this post from Lisa Nielson has a useful infographic to look at <a href="http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/4-things-you-need-to-know-to-help-your.html">4 things you need to know to help your students manage their online reputation</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is really just an information post, but I would love it if you added any comments about this subject in the comment box below. </span></div></div></div></div>

30 Days of Writing 30 days of writing #4: Have you spoken to your students about Online Safety/Digital Citizenship?

Logo Design by FlamingText.com When practising online digital writing or digital storytelling it is useful to consider issues around online...

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30 Days of Writing #3: A prompt a day from Plinky.com

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you have access to 1:1 computers, or if your students have computers and Internet access at home, you could introduce them to daily writing exercise using a website called Plinky (</span><a href="http://www.plinky.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://www.plinky.com/</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">)</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlaLxZXHkVCclARrTcd4QFWA3Lp6MCmYEcYeu_t1AGBXmEnTvwIvCib4URJnKridpOuPUd89hm0nO7hwc_5xuDxXkAuk1zdonFcGYVWq911TH0qAXby9l1GlBMjB4f0vDhPrxMkLmHMw8/?imgmax=800" title="image" width="244" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>How does Plinky work?</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is what the website says:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Every day we provide a new prompt (like a question, or a challenge), and everyone gets a chance to answer. It's simple to add photos, maps, playlists and more. You can easily share your Plinky answers on Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Tumblr, and most major blogging services. We know you've got something interesting to say. Plinky is here to help you say it in a fun and compelling way. Sign up below to get started!”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXGY7GlKsbuws4osEHU9i_PnQM9eGH4EiAY1q_cBVWfEgMztDW2hs_fc9a7OasMWHnSuoWOow3ZQIaPsuthDTkcMkG5ZgYEpgqMCesAUhNmKYSA4ARmpCv8HW36ilQr9-5KtaL1l5ED_M/?imgmax=800" title="image" width="244" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>What happens when you sign up?</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a fairly lengthy form to fill in</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUZHI5MBY_nCrmRhXruZXRhEJ99kSy4qN6K4SyrgiWnPJmTp6KjgbPv-mC8oMhSOe_uLL5rTUX-U1pcjFS9hp5FwxBP1VBzH2DpfpIGYWzW4hM1m8DOgWocbdgvmItDf0vGUFoCx08T9c/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="277" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whew! At last. This is quite a mission and it makes me wonder about involving younger primary school students. The daily prompt is shown as in my first illustration above, but there are a number of prompts to choose from if you don’t like the one displayed.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuzYkuScc2uc7bOaMqro9D8pzD6jPB73vp6yEzuCgUahXAZZowzT-RSQY4NaIuV2bTwOWIffd7v1CFU_Mvpf7fC7WKYqx-t6I4BLd0f_BgpNonbJLZATOh78GpLkTB1bUT_6aTDfd-6G4/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="222" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>My conclusion</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This could be a site for an older student. If one could get past the sign up process the site could be quite useful just for spontaneous writing. </span></div>

30 Days of Writing 30 Days of Writing #3: A prompt a day from Plinky.com

If you have access to 1:1 computers, or if your students have computers and Internet access at home, you could introduce them to daily writi...

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30 days of writing ideas #3: A request to share a true story based on Internet-sharing from Alan Levine

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="color: magenta;"><b style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">___</i><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">_________________________________________</i></b></span><br /><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b style="background-color: white;">If you are a South African teacher reading this we would like to tell you about a writing opportunity and a free online writing course that is coming up with SchoolNetSA  as part of the amazing <a href="http://e-blogschool.blogspot.com/2013/03/30-days-of-writing-1-welcome-to-african.html" target="_blank">African Storybook project</a> and website that is being developed for Africa. Our 30 days of writing posts will lead up to giving more information about this. WATCH THIS SPACE!</b></i></span><br /><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b style="background-color: white;">__________________________________________________________</b></span><br /><div><br /></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alan Levine is someone I have come to appreciate when it comes to writing ideas - in fact I would call him a digital writing guru! His two wikis, <i>Cogdogroo</i> (found at <a href="http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/" title="http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com">http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com</a>) and <i>50+ Web2 ways to tell a story</i> found at <a href="http://50ways.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">http://50ways.wikispaces.com/ </a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> give loads of wonderful ideas for writing. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Purely by chance I came across this video of his on YouTube made in January 2013 asking people to… <i>(he can say it better than I can</i>) ...</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Yes, it is another call for what I call "True Stories of Open Sharing" - examples of people's experiences of unexpected outcomes when they share something openly online. I will be building a new collection at  </span><a href="http://cogdogblog.com/stuff/truestori..." style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://cogdogblog.com/stuff/truestori...</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> - and if you have one to share, either make it a video response here or submit a URL for a video to </span><a href="http://bit.ly/truestories13" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://bit.ly/truestories13</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you go to Alan’s blog <a href="http://stories.cogdogblog.com/" title="http://stories.cogdogblog.com/">http://stories.cogdogblog.com/</a> you’ll find a collection of these stories to listen to.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6_dl1TFRbWY0hohjLofaF57kU1czBeSR2XGhWRkNiv-yGFBvWoTFTTiVZFj00j3mrntm4OBoLx_EhbOh-_IHqui3DajSsTR55M_fuUIh0oBYZ4cV7wWkYRmBDTrWyxT4N-0KhXijuY-0/s1600-h/image%25255B2%25255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb0yDqQ62xI_HWvnyBl44I2XgoI8g9IKmgaUQgKvCayuT5V-pu_n-fUBp8sYq3VXJG6QFLo7klwszGVi4R0ZjMgOSxd64X7RJh4Qk_VwbNM2MM44M1be-wf-Oi4zxs9v-lyK76Iv2zR7o/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Listen to what he says on the video below and then decide….</span><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MB7eAGS5_0U" width="420"></iframe></div>

30 Days of Writing Writing 30 days of writing ideas #3: A request to share a true story based on Internet-sharing from Alan Levine

___ _________________________________________ If you are a South African teacher reading this we would like to tell you about a writing oppo...

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30 Days of writing #2: Get your students writing for 60 seconds with oneword.com

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>_____________________________________________</b></i></span><br /><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>If you are a South African teacher reading this we would like to tell you about a writing opportunity and a free online writing course that is coming up with SchoolNetSA  as part of the amazing <a href="http://e-blogschool.blogspot.com/2013/03/30-days-of-writing-1-welcome-to-african.html" target="_blank">African Storybook project</a> and website that is being developed for Africa. Our 30 days of writing posts will lead up to giving more information about this. WATCH THIS SPACE!</b></i></span><br /><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>__________________________________________________________</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More and more one can see how amazing it could be if all the students in a class have tablets. Imagine having just one or two minutes each day to get the students writing! This website <a href="http://oneworld.com/">http://oneworld.com</a> is designed for just that. All you have to do is:</span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You’ll see <strong>one word</strong> at the top of the following screen.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have <strong>sixty seconds</strong> to write about it.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Click <strong>go</strong> and the page will load with the cursor in place.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don’t <strong>think</strong>. Just <strong>write</strong>.</span></li></ul><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihx9GHB4MGHcDBzdrTLBOcFbUA11g3c3dteUnR4QBFAQoiayETj3sqXXNDNOSkPrI7rOiCKB4sDO2dpPCCHSVu1ooEhsPzDAMfwMt6mOFYDytbnYYdd6STgFm0Nwr_KwYl82L1YZNMM5E/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="242" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Advantages of daily writing practise:</b></span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This could get students into the habit of just writing and thinking out of the box. </span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By writing every day, the students gain fluency while getting a chance to practice important punctuation, spelling, and style skills in context</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The students will soon start writing more fluently. </span></li></ul><div><br /></div></div>

30 Days of Writing Writing 30 Days of writing #2: Get your students writing for 60 seconds with oneword.com

_____________________________________________ If you are a South African teacher reading this we would like to tell you about a writing oppo...

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30 days of Writing #1: Welcome to the African Storybook project

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="color: magenta;"><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">__</i><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">__<b>_________________________________________</b></i></span><br /><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><b>If you are a South African teacher reading this we would like to tell you about a writing opportunity and a free online writing course that is coming up with SchoolNetSA  as part of this amazing <a href="http://e-blogschool.blogspot.com/2013/03/30-days-of-writing-1-welcome-to-african.html" target="_blank">African Storybook project</a> and website that is being developed for Africa. Our 30 days of writing posts will lead up to giving more information about this. WATCH THIS SPACE!</b></i></span><br /><span style="color: magenta; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>__________________________________________________________</b></span><br /><span style="color: magenta;"><br /></span><em><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></em><em><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Submitted by Fiona Beal. Portions of this post are adapted from the Saide December 2012 newsletter.</span></em><br /><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saide (South African Institute of Distance Education)<i> </i>has launched an exciting new project aimed at contributing to the improvement of reading and literacy for young African children. The project, known as the African Storybook Project,  is funded by Comic Relief in the United Kingdom. The exciting thing is that SchoolNet is participating in this project so you'll be hearing a lot more about it from us!  I have previously submitted a post on the initial workshop of the African Storybook Project in Johannesburg – <a href="http://e-blogschool.blogspot.com/2012/12/this-is-fiona-beal-from-schoolnet-on.html">Introducing the African Storybook Project</a>.  Tessa Welch of Saide is the project leader in this exciting venture.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrtO3v-uRKwkYdl-8TLHbEignc4hwJ9xiMmSwyaUiPEi_t58dllaz_MTdRT9wJwobCex4CFxyBbey2KZwTNZxHAq8xKQSymCFB2fO7-5pS0rR_6w4568MXtXgVEPUIzLYMQhqQr0xeXBU/?imgmax=800" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrtO3v-uRKwkYdl-8TLHbEignc4hwJ9xiMmSwyaUiPEi_t58dllaz_MTdRT9wJwobCex4CFxyBbey2KZwTNZxHAq8xKQSymCFB2fO7-5pS0rR_6w4568MXtXgVEPUIzLYMQhqQr0xeXBU/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="244" /></a></div><span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>What is the African Storybook Project?</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The African Storybook Project (ASP) is a project that will create and encourage the use of a digital library of stories for the first few years of reading in digital formats, openly<b> </b>licensed, with a process and tools for translating and versioning stories for local African languages and contexts. These will be shared on a website which is in the process of being created. This will enable users to upload and share versions of the stories in their local languages, providing numbers of stories in a range of languages way beyond the scope of conventional publishing.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this way we aim to provide African children with sufficient familiar language stories for enjoyable reading practice to create a firm basis for literacy development.  </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The initial pilot will take place in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The initial workshop </b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An initial workshop was held  on 10th November 2012 to explore the key issues before starting the project. The poject leaders thought it would be a good idea not only to discuss but also to experience different ways of creation, presentation and translation/versioning. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The presentation on the <b>Japanese art of Kamisihibai</b> by Jemma Kahn held us spellbound, and this was followed by a discussion  of how the techniques and rules of Kamishibai could work digitally for children’s stories.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90SoDrDvaOKpFGNJTGgXPEFUpf5F0Cs9_o5FqjCBN4zcK77OXa-e66CsMVbffC5JqblUliVJUG4t056x-UbWJ5IJ7MHwJO6KwErZ7nu_-ABmjFmhtWrO-TWQQVcucGZn7DghH965LzR0/?imgmax=800" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90SoDrDvaOKpFGNJTGgXPEFUpf5F0Cs9_o5FqjCBN4zcK77OXa-e66CsMVbffC5JqblUliVJUG4t056x-UbWJ5IJ7MHwJO6KwErZ7nu_-ABmjFmhtWrO-TWQQVcucGZn7DghH965LzR0/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="244" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jemma Kham illiutrating the japanese art of  Kamisihibai</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A session of <b>games, riddles, and tongue twisters</b> was led by Sheila Drew. One of the activities involved taking a portion of a cut up puzzle picture, finding the group members with the rest of the picture and creating a story together. One member of each group related the group's story to all the participants.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 400px;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" width="200"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkVHSZ2ppoqv2scV5XIGUsnXtTBiFL-sw9gc3Y8UHjjeP7T-R3QkgHUaHnv2EzdeoJXCipP3tEJ7Lr0AJJpMX1VCGvZibJ3a457Pikl5QfrIwGDgxYB27q-LMGk4gOi0aQzHOwGXQ66eM/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="244" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sheila Drew</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3fEKxZRweGClLhIRUVqYw_Ts2vacfWma-X7Y0FewrhG4bLEtqM1Om4e6FZZz8LXVU57i_BsXRkNSsOShm_JDTZExxdOEG4h5jwH8wVDxc0quijnPoWAj_lB_v9a7bAZ6afVKSRgVR9pI/s1600-h/image%25255B5%25255D.png"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></td> <td valign="top" width="200"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMGoCRmDSS2W2_EnAOSs-Rd_gyzhZTBUgNV2GsLW_zBXSRl6-nknckNkx0EPtFnJPyDHrVey-CTvhcywTbzvQoHDbNpWCad7yH6Jx9k_d2BynPAlZeTCDePZYmEkx7-eQWxapbMGf6cY8/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="244" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The group creates a story</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYVm9gduioO_CV2IVuMoZZCoRklbMZAgwrv7_mH4hxLdbFFsPkWBoH1K5LWGkp8pCKmvRGNnfVwC_ArWYWQiFqgO1REkVAceKTilsYeCrkgltcpq1LfKEJ6SC6Vi-eWOEJwtNXSedWMOU/s1600-h/image%25255B8%25255D.png"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The presentation of child created/illustrated stories, with ideas for how this kind of project could described and replicated was given by Glynis Clacherty. Glynis elaborated on the process of story development she used with refugee children during a holiday programme in Johannesburg.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghheu6HH8InLBc5QFzMsIU9JfNwRIaZOwKgx3Vt4zZMHCRaoUCbqLJVDzTtObksstlAbuvA-3hp6XKJ5s6yHzeUnjKA8v8mFJ_75c1cSdgvf29vTJ1ZXZB-miQa9CcCax23kg-rrQPPhQ/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="244" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glynis Clacherty</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The translating and versioning of stories session was based on a humorous story called </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Refiloe and the washed chickens. </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It centred around performances of a section of the Refiloe and the washed chickens story in Setswana and isiZulu with a discussion of translation issues in treating comedy led by Nicholas Welch and Jeremiah Mntonga. We were exposed to improvisation techniques which encouraged all the workshop participants to contribute to the version.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOJEGD8pkHozf7EkpR9L5dQ_whMQ1PtEH1-pqQRiS_8nt7DMNzmqxY9X_DUa1DSiZlPhyphenhyphenebEuXzvwvhNL-k43JyTbthM1U7Ev0V5l7NYpEfZ2CFy0RRM2geqFpwXjCeF2nbjCxE4Rm2_Y/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="244" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nicholas Welch and Jeremiah Mntonga</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jefferson Shabalala led us in a humorous performance of the Xhosa weatherman.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDGcwdfV6BohgO_l7QoveouEXwM_ANnvTCHEtkexaoIgJiU1wHG-hXQr5c4seRvoqWIraM1a80SVNeehpdzrnBwcW4XRyQoVPA0ZDDMakx3Sbbg3aEORkw3JiLLK9ZCdYhPOJhkFU2DY/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="244" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jefferson Shabalala</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></span></div><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A project of partnerships</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The African Storybook Project will be a project of partnerships - we do not see ourselves in competition with other projects, but cooperating with and complementing existing initiatives in ways that are mutually beneficial. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Through the work of Judith Baker over a number of years, the project has a list of over 40 potential partners in the three pilot countries of Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, but also in Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone,South Sudan and Zambia. In addition, there are possible partnerships through organisations that work across Sub Saharan Africa such as the TESSA programme and the Canadian literacy organisation, CODE.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 400px;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" width="200"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVevuWCzMuK-jcxrr2lGCdZxedowV6KUE8njFOIV1VFuuwVBxGbos-tqMhoEIsK-6aQ_n1cahz9aA8I07lVvIWrMExcNlgBNkmfwQRsDEyMqV1DOt8iMRmzzg4bYXAUMWLx5NWZ0mUG-c/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="244" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Judith Baker</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyGPRF6jDzPCMucO2TD6SQUa5lTIC2lL0RRLIi6s8cQuMzC4V9-ypJbBfCQJrlx5TJwwF8LURoKU7Vae2djjBb6paDyuIHlnjeLi0zLn-sp7Ks_UBnMzeqoxHXNJko3mLM6zQpbsC3ZmA/s1600-h/image%25255B23%25255D.png"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></td> <td valign="top" width="200"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvflIRysytzuQNfDWuLRScNKJ2Lw3_9iqxtJ5RGGKkPP5984T-ocbOrfE9kZM-UiDfTJL7Day4Vy6Z8tLtUZhlX98haLjMEjDgM9_vsaDpMs3B_2Zt17rIMA42i_xheKcPXcwzKJ4GJM4/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="267" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Judith Baker leading a discussion</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjXYy4RWCgxclVZDxN-A6RFiYsGXeiWz7bbvXzUm89Fw5LsQc5-bexAz7l3OpjwlqWlsyzsHL5DjclTb9FoxptzMIFCJcPNdl5RmJYfE3DOYTmggvSm7QbLhyphenhyphen7fdbFeagBXRegMg_wQQ/s1600-h/image%25255B27%25255D.png"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Story Acquisition</span></b><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need a critical mass of stories in a range of languages in order to be able to start work in the pilot countries in the middle of this year. We are aware that there is quite a lot of free material already on the website and we already have a process for exploring, assessing, downloading and categorising this material systematically.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are also inviting all interested parties to submit stories to us. If you are interested in helping us by donating a story, here are the guidelines: </span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our main interest is stories that children can read themselves when they're in the first stages of reading - a few words or a sentence a page, with an accompanying illustration - although there is place for more difficult read-aloud stories as well.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're looking for African stories in languages spoken in Africa that will appeal to African children up to the age of 9 or 10.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can send us typed up stories with or without illustrations, or scanned PDF stories with illustrations, or recordings of stories, songs and games.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you send us a story, please also send the information about the story as per the<a href="http://www.saide.org.za/resources/newsletters/Vol_18_no.6_2012/Content/Information%20to%20submit%20with%20story.docx"> attached form</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Send the stories to: tessaw@saide.org.za and jennyl@saide.org.za.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If your stories are too large to email, let us know and we'll invite you to our Dropbox folder where you can upload large files free of charge.</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are a teacher that would like to get your class writing stories for this project, please consider participating in our free online four week course Digital Writing for the African Storybook project which starts in mid-April. Please watch the SchoolNet blog's<a href="http://e-blogschool.blogspot.com/p/courses.html" target="_blank"> Free online courses page</a> to sign up and to see the requirements for the stories that are subitted. . A teacher from the school that submits the most useable stories will be invited to accompany the African Storybook project to an international reading and Writing conference in Niarobi in August 2013. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You’ll be hearing a lot more about this exciting project in the months ahead.</span><br /><br /></div></div>

30 Days of Writing African Storybook Project 30 days of Writing #1: Welcome to the African Storybook project

__ __ _________________________________________ If you are a South African teacher reading this we would like to tell you about a writing op...

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