Visual Storytelling for Everyone

Hello friends and loved ones, this post is the last post of my Technology and Materials Design course. It's been greate and very informed semester. I feel very priviledged that I took this course wth Dr. Gökçe Kurt. Mrs.Kurt, thank you for everything!

Anyway let's begin: This post is about a website Storybird.

Storybird is a platform for writers, readers, and artists of all ages. Storybird lets anyone make visual stories in seconds. They curate artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspire writers of any age to turn those images

into fresh stories.

It's a simple idea that has attracted millions of writers, readers, and artists to our platform. Families and friends, teachers and students, and amateurs and professionals have created more than 5 million stories —making Storybird one of the world's largest

storytelling communities.

How Do You Join Storybird?

Tap "Sign up" on the home page and follow the instructions in the Sign up form. In particular, choose a username carefully. You can’t change it. Your username should *never* be your full name.

Once you completed sign up you’ll be sent an email to confirm your registration. Be sure you add us to your safe list and check your spam filter if you don’t see our email.

You’ll be able to start using Storybird immediately, but be sure to activate your account as soon as you receive your activation email.

I loved Storybird, it gives you high quality illustrations and a lot of options. You can create amazing stories and books. It enhances students' comprehension capacity. In our classroom, we can use it for creating class books and when students read a book, they can re-create their favourite scene.

So, this is it. Thank you for following me. I'll continue to post here. I was very daunted by the idea of opening a blog. Thank you Mrs.Kurt for this course and making us to open blogs. 

Bitstrips? That Facebook Comics?

Ever wondered what it would be like to bring your characters to life? Human technology has a way to go before we can extract such from our imagination and animate these larger, or indeed smaller than life personalities. But there is always the other form of ‘animation’ and one that’s accessible to even those of us who find adjusting the toaster a challenge.

Bitstrips is an App available on Facebook and Twitter, which enables you to create cartoon avatars. You can create as many as you like if you have alternative profiles or friends that don’t mind you mutating them. Each day the App offers four cartoon scenes in which your character appears with ‘co-stars’. Their posture and what they are saying is up to you.

Getting Started

To get started with Bitstrips, you should first connect your account to the app through its Facebook page, just as you would any app on Facebook. There are also mobile apps available through the App Store and Google Play.

Creating Your Avatar

Creating your avatar is a detailed process that some may find fun. It's made easy by the app's inclusion of your Facebook photos, which you can use as a point of reference.

You can alter various facial features, chose your avatar's body type and pick out your outfit. The whole process takes between eight minutes and four hours, depending on how much detail you want to add.

Once you've chosen your outfit and have placed the finishing touches on your cartoon face, it's time to start creating comics.

Creating and Sharing Comics

To create a comic with your avatar, choose one of the tabs on the top menu. The "Make a Status Comic" tab allows you to create a comic with only your avatar, while "Friend Comics" allow you to add in a Facebook friend who is also connected to Bitstrips. You can then choose from a massive number of scenes and scenarios, all of which are customizable.

Once you've selected your scene, you can change your character's body position, move appendages around and add text bubbles. The app allows for easy sharing to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

In my opinion, this app can be used in creating students' favourite scene of their book and they can create weekly comics also.

See you in next post.