New Tutorials: StoryboardThat

Welcome to my BLOG, again!

It’s TUTORIAL’S DAY today and I’m going to show you two incredible websites you can use with your students and I’m sure they will love them.

Let’s begin with the first one:

StoryboardThat

StoryboardThat is a website that lets kids create storyboards for learning or fun.

It is an online storyboard creator that helps visually communicate ideas and concepts to quickly tell a story. It provides templates in which you can create your stories in a comic strip style along with hundreds of scenes, characters, and text bubbles to fill your storyboard's frames. (Saxena, S. 2014)

Storyboardthat offers students the opportunity to be exposed to digital storytelling.

Digital storytelling creates space for students to pursue topics about which they are passionate, grows their learning around assigned topics, and showcases their learning for peers, teachers, and audiences beyond the schoolhouse, all of whom are able to interact with the storyteller. (Dillon, 2014)

Comics are beneficial to learning in the classroom and not just a fun art-enrichment activity. Technology not only changes how we write, but it also changes what writing is. Digital graphic writing is one genre students need to be fluent. (Comic Life in Education, n.d.)

How to use STORYBOARDTHAT?

STEP 1

Go to www.storyboardthat.com and you have two options: you can get your free account clicking on “LOG ON” or you can start creating your storyboard choosing the “FREE TRIAL” option and there’s no need to create an account for that.

STEP 2

Now, you are there! You can start creating your storyboard. First, you should select a scene. The storyboard creator contains over 500 scenes that are divided in categories like Town, School, Work, Historical, etc. You just have to drag and drop a scene into a panel.

When you click on the scene, you will be given options to modify your scene such as the colour, the size and more.

STEP 3

This scene needs characters! By clicking the character bar you will find a lot of characters to choose and, of course, they are sorted into different categories.

If you click on the character, you can edit features such as the skin colour, the clothes colour, makeup, eyes and more! You can even edit their face expression, pose and emotion!

STEP 4

You can add shapes and any kind of objects to your story by clicking on the tabs at the top of the webpage. If you have trouble finding the object you need you can write what you need in the “SEARCH” space. For example, I’ve searched “present”. You can also edit it – the same way you did it with your characters.

STEP 5

By clicking on the textables tab above, you can drag and drop thought and speech bubbles. Inside the bubble, you can type whatever you want.

STEP 6

When you are satisfied with your creation, you can click on the SAVE button below. A save dialogue will pop up. If you have the free account you can only create 2 storyboards per week.
Add the title and the description of your story.

STEP 7

There you are! A complete storyboard saved in your account!

Here's a link to sample production: www.storyboardthat.com/storyboards/belen5026/the-way-up-to-heaven---one-sceneopen_in_new

References

Saxena, S. (2014, June 22). Storyboard That : Online Storyboard Creator. Retrieved from http://edtechreview.in/reviews/1291-storyboard-that-online-storyboard-creator

The Power of Digital Story. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-power-of-digital-story-bob-dillon

Comic Life in Education. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2018, from https://homepages.dsu.edu/mgeary/comics/Comic_Life_in_Education.pdf