Here’s another neat thing that I learned about from Jen Roberts. On Back in March on her blog, Literacy, Technology, and Policy she shared how she has students use Google’s Story Builder tool to create short stories. Through Story Builder you can create a short story that appears to be written by multiple editors but is really written by just one person. I used it to create a short story about conversations in my house. On her blog Jen shared examples of her students’ stories including a neat demonstration of using Story Builder to tell a story about using proper punctuation. I encourage you to read her post in which she includes some helpful planning tips for teachers.

Applications for Education
I used Story Builder to create a story that had three characters typing instead of talking. In this manner the Google Story Builder tool could be useful for illustrating short sections of dialogue in a larger story that your students are developing.