Introduction to My Story Maker
What is My Story Maker? My Story Maker is an online story creation tool developed by Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center for the Carnege Pittsburg Library in 2007. At first, the program was only available on the Library's computers, but it is now available online so that remote users (mainly children) can enjoy it as well. This story creation tool allows children to select and control characters and objects as they use them to build a story. Sentences can either be written by the child or are produced for them based on the characters and objects they have selected for their story. Once the child's story is completed, the child can print it out or share it with others who have permission to view it (using a special number code) online.Using My Story Maker
How to access My Story Maker. My Story Maker can be accessed online through the children's section of the Carnegie Library's website. [1]. The program can also be accessed directly by going to [2].
How does My Story Maker work? After clicking on "Click to Begin," a user is asked to enter their name. Once the user's name is entered, they will be prompted to choose a main character from a set of clickable animated characters. Available characters range from a knight to a mermaid, and several ethnicities of both girls and boys in a variety of outfits. There are around 30 different characters to select from.
The user is then asked to pick a "goal" for the main character from just 7 options including defeat, find, love, make friends, rescue, travel, or want. After a goal for the main character has been selected, then the user is prompted to decide what or who the character needs to defeat, find, love, make friends with, rescue, travel to, or what the character wants. The program then provides a name for the story, which does not appear to be changeable by the user. While the title is not changeable, there is an option to go back and change the main character, goal, or item at that point.
After deciding to move forward with the assigned title based on the initial selections, the child needs to click on an arrow button that says “start my story.” Once that button is clicked on, a main story building page comes up. A little turquoise animated guy with a balloon antennae (the "Story Helper") pops up on top of the main story page. The child is instructed to select either “play instructions” or “start story.”
If the child clicks on “play instructions,” the first of 10 instruction bubbles pops up. Each instruction bubble has instructions written in it and is also read audibly by an adult male narrator. There are arrows at the bottom of each of the instruction bubbles that allow the child to click forward to the next instruction or go back to review the previous one. The instructions explain how to select and move objects, add words, move between pages of the story, preview the story, and finally, end and print the story.
The main story building page has what might be called a “staging area” or “frame” in which to arrange characters and objects on top of selectable background scenery. There are three groups that users can pick from to "stage" their stories: characters, objects, and background scenery. These are all organized as clickable pictures on the right hand side of the "staging frame."
When a user clicks on one of the "setting buttons," the background scene in the main "frame" changes to that. When one of the scenery objects is clicked on, it dropped in the staging area and can then be dragged to any location within the scene. Clicking on an "item" will result in that item dropping into the frame and then it can be further manipulated by some special action buttons on the left of the screen.
In the image above, the background is a sunny grassy scene which was selected from the "setting" buttons. The rock was a "scenery object" that was clicked on and then dragged to that location. The red ball was selected as an "item." The user moved it close to the lion and when they got close enough, the lion then picked it up. After the ball was picked up by the lion, the user clicked on the lion and both the lion and ball became highlighted in red. With that highlighted, the user hovered the mouse over the golden sun icon in the upper left corner of the frame and some new options appeared. These options included an "interaction" button (indicated by a picture of two people), "action" (represented by a picture of one person) and "emotion" (shown by a smiley face). These option buttons are only available when a character and/or item are highlighted. The new options all have to do with either the character, the item, or both. In the image above, the user clicked on the "interact" button. In the image below, the user selected a red fox to enter the scene with the lion and then clicked on "throw to" in the interaction options. Since the lion and ball were highlighted when "throw to" was selected, My Story Maker put a green arrow above the fox. The user then clicked on the fox and watched the lion toss the ball to the fox. This is like watching a cartoon. The animation is very clear and flowing. The mid-throw action was captured for the image below.
Whenever an interaction, action, or emotion are chosen, the program also produces sentences that reflect the users' choices. These program-produced sentences can be erased and replaced with the user's own words by highlighted the type and just pressing delete on the keyboard. The user can then simply type in the words they desire. There does not appear to be any way to turn off the sentence production feature of the program.
The image above shows a prompt given by the little "story helper" when clicked on. The story helper give tips for how to progress with the story and can be clicked on at anytime during the creation process. In order to get rid of objects in the frame, the user can drag them into the sentence creation area and they disappear in a poof. Objects can also be erased by clicking on the "clear" button on the top right hand corner of the staging area. This option erases all objects, characters, and scenery, however.
The action and interaction options are a lot of fun to play with. This is probably the most entertaining aspect of the program. This feature is helpful for young students who are still learning how to form sentences and may have trouble thinking of some of the words or how to spell them. For older students, this feature might be either an annoyance or an unnecessary crutch.
Once the user feels their story is complete, they click on "End" tab in the upper right corner of the staging area. They are then given the option of sharing their story or not sharing their story. If the user chooses to share their story with others, it is "published" and the user is provided with a number code to re-access their own story or to share. The story remains available online for one month. Whether or not the user chooses to share their story, they are still given the option to print out their completed story. The story can also be saved in PDF form.
Educational and Classroom Uses
Educators will be able to use My Story Maker to get early elementary children more excited and confident about creating stories. Very young children who are just learning to read and write can build meaningful stories without having to come up with all of the words on their own. A child can select characters, goals, objects and scenery just by clicking on a picture representing that thing. My Story Maker will suggest sentences for the children to use that represent what they have selected for each "frame" of their story. Younger children would likely appreciate this feature, as it would make their story-telling efforts less strenuous for themselves and more understandable to others. The program may help promote greater literacy in younger children as they are able to see their ideas emerge in sentences that correlate to the images they manipulate. Older children should be encouraged to write their stories in their own words, rather than use the sentences generated by the program.My Story Maker guides students in thinking about important features of their stories before ever beginning to write. This includes considering such questions as: who is the story going to be about (main characters)?, what is going to happen?, and where does the story take place (setting)? Once the student has answered these questions, they are then prompted to think about what will happen first, and then what will happen next in the story, and finally, how the story will end. The students gain a better understanding and working knowledge about what elements typically go into stories and how to incorporate them into their own stories. The tools and promptings in My Story Maker also encourage children to begin to develop some higher order thinking skills such as problem solving and creative thinking.
After students have completed their stories in My Story Maker, teachers could have the children in their classrooms write down the number code for their story to share with the entire class, or to share with a smaller group of classmates. Viewing other classmates' stories could benefit students in several ways. First, they would get practice reading. Second, they would be exposed to the unique ideas and story-telling techniques of their peers. Third, they could be asked to evaluate stories of classmates based on a specific set of criteria appropriate to their grade level.
Examples of evaluation criteria could be:
- Who is the main character in the story?
- Name one thing that the character in the story does or tries to do?
- Describe a setting used in the story.
- Does the story have a happy ending, a sad ending, a confusing ending, or a different sort of ending? Explain your answer.
What's to Love About My Story Maker
The part of My Story Maker that really makes story creation fun for users of all ages is being able to manipulate characters and objects within a frame. Character, objects, and scenery are easy to add or delete from a frame by clicking and dragging. Particularly entertaining is that the characters "walk" when the user clicks and drags them to different parts of the building frame. The character can also interact with objects. For example, the user can select an apple from the objects area and drag it close to the character. They can then specify that they would like the character to eat the apple. If they select this, the character will appear to eat the apple through animation. All of this entertainment value is lost, however, once the story is complete. At that point the characters are no longer animated, but simply appear as still pictures. The still pictures are vibrant and entertaining, but not nearly as entertaining as the animations during the creation process.Another wonderful feature of My Story Maker is that it encourages young children to begin thinking of the main elements of a story such as main character, setting, goals, and interactions. These concepts are not explicitly taught, but rather just used as hands on guiding principles for the children to follow. Most children probably would not think they were learning while creating a story in My Story Maker, but the story elements would be introduced and reinforced nevertheless.
My Story Maker's share feature is great for classroom use or even sharing with relatives like grandparents. Since it is done with a unique number code rather than a name, institution, or email, it is quite secure as far as identity protection goes. Another great aspect of My Story Maker is that children can print their own stories out and create a little booklet.
What's Not to Love About My Story Maker
Since My Story Maker is getting a bit old in term of technology (2007) and was originally designed for use only on the Pittsburgh Library's computers, there are sometimes issues with attempts to save and print the finished stories from remote locations. The program was designed to work with Acrobat Reader 5.x and and older Flash players, so their are known problems with using the current Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player. Also, it is recommended that Internet Explorer (IE) be used as the browser because Firefox does not recognize an end of line return when writing the story and Google Chrome cannot print out the file from My Storymaker.For educators and parents, one minor concern with My Story Maker's content could be with the Maker's "love" as a goal for the main character. The “love,” option does not allow the character to love the beach, cotton candy, or a drum, but only allows for “falling in love” with one of the other characters. While this "goal" is in line with many popular fairy tales, some modern educators and parents might question the appropriateness of the "love" option only referring to "falling in love." This aspect also limits creativity by only allowing the main character to fall in love another character rather than loving an activity or an object. There are three other selectable goals within My Story Maker that only allow for the assignment of another character as the focus of the goal. These include "defeat," "make friends, and "rescue." It seems that if a child wants their character to have to "make friends" with a boat or "rescue" a cupcake, they should be able to. But the "falling in love" goal may be the most worrisome of these creativity-limiting goals.
Another issue that many users might have with My Story Maker is that the title of the story is assigned by the program rather than thought of by the story's creator. There does not seem to be a good reason why the creator should not be able to name their story themselves, if desired. This was a disappointment to me personally as I began work on a story of my own in My Story Maker. I like to be able to come up with my own names for the things I create and I'm sure most users, including young children, would feel similarly.
Another disappointment when using My Story Maker arises when the user realizes that all of the fun activities they are having their characters do on screen (as depicted through animation) are lost once the story is "published." Only a still shot of the final frame for each page is saved. When I was creating my first story, I was excited to "watch" the final production in animated form. As previously mention, however, this is not an option in My Story Maker.
One other thing about My Story Maker that may cause frustration for some users is the fact that a completed story only remains available on My Story Maker for one month. If students want to keep copies of their work for longer than a month, they must either print out their story or save it as a PDF.
Security
The library's website states that any content created in My Story Maker can be used for promotional purposes. This would apparently be just the content and not the child's name or institution, although that is not explicitly stated. When the user enter their name, they can choose a fake name or only use their first name. This is the only personal information that is collected, so, security looks to be fairly good. This would be especially true if students were encouraged to use a "pen name" on the site.Each story that is completed in My Story Maker can be accessed online for one month by using a number code assigned to that story. So, the only people who can access a user's completed story are those who have the special number code for their particular story. This makes it a fairly secure online student authoring tool. The story associated with a number code would not include the user's institution or personal information beyond the name they entered.
No comments:
Post a Comment