Shadow Puppet APP: Great for Student Story Telling Projects (Early Grades AND Higher)

Here's an easy, great way for students tell stories and to have a permanent, re-playable performance of their telling it. Students  use a digital  resource to present pictures sequentially, having put them in an order they devise to tell the story. They also record their own narration that accompanies each of the slides. Students can use either pictures they create on their own by drawing or photography OR pictures they appropriate from the Internet.

I've done projects like this over the years using PowerPoint, which works fine. Students insert a picture into each slide and PowerPoint allows them to record their voice, narrating the 'action' (story segment) on that slide separately to accompany the image. They can also keyboard in the text of their narration if they choose, as well. All of this works great, but there's a bit of a steep learning curve for both teacher and students and it can be a bit labor intensive.

Now, however, with Shadow Puppet APP this has become easier and I think much more do-able for  younger children. Take a look at a blog post from colleague, Cathy Knutson  who explains in detail how she uses this approach with 2nd Graders at Oak Hills Elementary Media Center (I love to see these things successfully done with young students!) http://ohekidstech.blogspot.com/2015/03/2nd-graders-narrate-wordless-books-with.html

See the video and article below for some more info on Shadow Puppet, too.



"Shadow Puppet Is A New Storytelling App For Sharing Narrated Slideshows Of Your Photos"

"Storytelling today means crowding around someone’s phone as they describe their photos. Shadow Puppet bring that show & tell experience online by letting you share a voice-over with an animated slideshow of your pics. Built with Greylock money by Carl Sjogreen, the Googler who sold travel startup Nextstop to Facebook, Shadow Puppet let you talk people through everything from vacations to app demos.

The free iOS app combines the ease of taking great photos with the movement, audio and storytelling strengths of video. Most of us can’t film, act or direct very well, so our Vines and Instagram videos come out crappy. But anyone can make a compelling Shadow Puppet — even kids.
That’s because it’s a natural behavior, something we actually do a lot already. “Shadow Puppet really started with this simple observation: Every time we’d go out to a park or restaurant with friends, someone would get out their phone and start telling a story based on the photos on their phone,” Sjogreen explains. “It’s quite a powerful way to communicate an idea, but there was no way to replicate that experience when you weren’t with someone in person...”



"... You’re The Puppeteer
Here’s how Shadow Puppet Works:

1. Pick a set of photos from any album on your device.
2. Drag-and-drop to reorder them, and crop them so they look right.
3. Record your audio voice-over providing the story behind the photos.
4. Tap and zoom to highlight points of interest as you go through pics.
5. Text, email, tweet, or Facebook your Shadow Puppet narrated slide show’s permalink.
6. Friends and followers can watch your Shadow Puppet even if they don’t have the app.

The creation experience is quick, simple, intuitive and even kind of fun, as you can see in this demo. The little yellow flashes that appear when you tap as you record do a great job of letting you digitally point to things in your photos, and making them viewable through a web player will help the app grow. When you’re talking, you feel like a voice actor. You just need to remember to be vibrant like you’re on stage even though no one can see you..."

Read the full article at its source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/18/shadow-puppet-app/