Storybird for libraries

Family Learning Festival

Activities using Storybird

www.lancashire.gov.uk

Digital Familiese-magine

Getting Started

Go to http://storybird.com/

If you haven’t already seen the intro video, now would be a good time to click ‘Tour’

and watch it (audio required).

Log in

Click on ‘Sign in’ and enter the username & password given to you by your library

You will immediately be asked to change the password to one you’ve chosen

Make sure you carefully note/remember the new password

You can now start using Storybird.

First, you’ll see your account settings

You are currently registered as a ‘Student’ in a ‘Class’ created by the Library

If you enjoy using Storybird for the library’s e-magine session, you

can always go to ‘create a personal account’

afterwards, but just leave this for now.

But, please do have a go at uploading a small

picture (avatar) to identify you/your family.

On the ‘You’ tab, you’ll be able to see any story you are working on

Plus, any you’ve already done and your favourite stories by others

On the ‘Class’ tab, you will be able to see who else is taking part in Digital Families e-magine

and view the stories they’ve created.

Your ‘Class’ is private and you, your details and your work can’t be seen by anyone

outside the class

And no-one except you can see your stories until

you decide to ‘publish’ them

At the end, Lancashire Library would like to publish the best stories on our website

Before you start a story, you should go to ‘Read’ and

have a look at other people’s stories

Starting your story

Ones you like you can ‘heart’ and add to your

Reading List

Look at stories written by and for different age groups and with different subjects

This will help you decide what sort of story you want to write

To begin a story, you must first choose the pictures you want to use to illustrate it

Create

There are two ways of choosing artwork

By

artist

Or

Pictorial

theme

Once you have begun to create a story, you cannot change or add to the choice of pictures

Important tip

So make sure there are enough by your chosen artist/theme before you

start

There are hundreds of themes. Keep clicking ‘Reload’ to see more. The bigger the tag the

more pictures are behind it

And start your story with the results of the search

Or you can search ‘Art’ to find pictures

Once you’ve chosen an artist or theme, click to start a Storybird

As you are working as part of the ‘Class’, you’ll be asked if the Storybird is for an assignment

Click the arrow next to ‘Choose one’, then click on the assignment name and then ‘Jump in!’

below it

The Story Maker will now open and you’ll see the blank first page ready for your story with

the artwork you’ve chosen at the side

If you choose an artist or theme with a lot of pictures, you’ll see they are all piled up

Important tip

You can move from side to side and spread them out

Important tip

When you click on a photo, it is brought to the top of the pile and a larger copy is displayed

To start your story, choose a picture and drag it onto the page

You can choose top or bottom, left or right

When you let go, it will fill the greyed area

And a box and cursor will appear ready for you to start writing your story

You can drag the picture to change the layout

Or click on it to remove it

At the bottom of the Story Maker screen you can see the whole book

You can add pages and also rearrange them by dragging

Or you can remove a page

Storybird automatically saves periodically

But, it’s a good idea to click on ‘Save’ every so often, just for safety

As you are writing your story

You’ll see Storybird underlines in red any words you have got wrong, so you can

change them

Before you finish and close down the session, don’t forget to fill in the story’s cover

Just click on the cover

It will automatically show the same picture as Page 1, but you can change this

Then just type in your title

If you want to see what your story looks like, click on the ‘full screen’ button at the middle at

the top

Just press the ‘escape’

key to go back to normal

If you want to leave your story and come back to it later, just click on ‘Menu’ and choose

‘Save and Close’

To continue your story, go to ‘You’ and your ‘unpublished’ stories and click ‘Jump In’

When you are happy that you’ve finished the story, you can publish it

In Story Maker, choose ‘Menu’ and

‘Publish this Storybird’

You can change the cover or title now, if

you want to

You will then need to fill in some details and click ‘Publish’

If you need to, you can still go back and change or add to your story after its published

Click on the published story

you want to change

And choose ‘Edit story’ at the bottom

Once your story has been published, it can be seen and read by other people taking part in

‘E-magine’ (in your ‘Class’)

Or you can share it by email

Click on ‘Send to a friend’

And Lancashire Library can publish your story on our website

Sharing your story making

In Storybird, it is also possible to have someone else share in the writing of the

story with you.

Open Story Maker and start writing your story. When you’re ready for someone else to join in, click ‘Menu’ and ‘Invite someone’

You can then choose someone else who’s taking part in ‘E-magine’ (in your ‘Class’)

And send them a message to invite them to share in writing your

story

The person you invite will then get a message

And can ‘Jump in’ and take over writing a part of the story

When they’ve done, they can go to ‘Menu’ and

‘Switch turns’ to hand the story making back to you

They send you a message back and you

can take up the turn

Only two people can work on a story together at a time

Important tip

Either of you can publish the story, but make sure you don’t publish until you’ve absolutely finished, because you won’t be able to share the writing after publishing

Need more help?

There are Step-by-Step video tutorial available on You Tube (audio required)

http://bit.ly/storybirdvideo

Need more help?

Click on ‘Help’ to find lots of advice on all aspects of Storybird

If you need help or support

You can contact us

library.online@lancashire.gov.uk

www.lancashire.gov.uk