Let’s consider the following excerpts from teacher’s reviews:

Shannon McClintock Miller, a District Teacher Librarian and Director of Innovation of Instructional Technology at Van Meter School in Iowa posts: “Little Bird Tales gives students a fun, creative way to share their ideas or knowledge in the form of stories, reports, or presentations. Teachers appreciate the ability to easily create custom digital assignments, and then assign, save, edit or share them with others. Customizable lessons provide countless teaching opportunities for numerous subjects to students across various grade levels.” (Miller , 2015)

Mieke VanderBorght, a teacher with a doctorate degree in Developmental Psychology from the University of Virginia. says:  “Storybird tool engages by empowering kids to draw and create original storybooks. An audio recording button allows kids to record their own voices as they narrate their stories.” [...] “The tool lacks clear how-to tutorials, but navigation is fairly intuitive. Lesson templates and member-created tales are a helpful guide. Visual and audio options make this accessible to kids of varying ages and abilities.” (VanderBorght, 2022)

Kelly Tenkely, founder of Anastasis Academy, The Learning Genome Project, 5Sigma Education Conference, tech integration specialist, instructional coach, writer, says about Little Bird Tales: “Little Bird Tales includes a built-in art pad where students can create pictures online.  They also have the option to upload photographs and images they have created offline.  Each page give students a place to add a picture, text and voice recording.  Finished books can be saved and accessed online or sent via email.” [...] "Students can use Little Bird Tales for creative writing and imaginative stories, as a way to reflect on learning, or as a keepsake for parents.  Students can take pictures of science experiments and create a digital science journal detailing the experiment with text and student voice reflections included." (Tenkely, 2011) 

After analysing the website and the reviews, I would like to share with you some of the benefits and drawbacks of Storybird:

Benefits of Little Bird Tales

• It was created for educational purposes.

• It supports different languages.

• It is user-friendly.

• Teachers are able to create their own virtual classroom for privacy purposes.

• Students can select various pre-created illustrations or writing pieces as a starting point to create a story. 

• The stories can be shared online easily but students can also print them if the teacher asks them to.

• Visuals are appealing.

Drawbacks of Little Bird Tales

• It requires to pay a fee because the free-trial only lasts seven days.

• It requires internet connection.

• If teachers intend to use the tool in the classroom, they need to assure that every student will have access to a computer or at least one computer per two or three students to work collaboratively. 

• Students will be required to have an email address.

• In reading activities language must be checked by the teacher first since it may not be accurate in all stories (they are created by users).

• The user cannot change font size, which is a disadvantage if the educator is working with a dyslexic student, for example.

To see how to use the tool, click here!