Middle School Students Love Little Bird Tales Too - Guest Post

At first glance, one would think that the online story creation and narration site, Little Bird Tales, is just for young children. But, my 8th grade English students would beg to differ. Ever since I showed them the site as part of our daily “Tech Two Tool” lesson, they have found multiple ways to put the site to work for them. Not only do they use the site to record stories they have written, but one student even used it to help her remember her editing symbols.  Another student used the site as a creative way to share his figurative language unit poem about Einstein. Yet another student chose to use Little Bird Tales to write a letter to the author of a book he read. And a group of students recently used the site to display their persuasive public service announcement about modern day slavery. When students have a video project that needs a storyboard, Little Bird Tales is the go-to tool for that as well. Many students have also reported using the site for projects in their other classes (Math, Social Studies, Spanish, Art) in lieu of power points, posters, and presentations. Plus, during exam week, students used the site to make narrated study tools, like illustrated flash cards and outlines, to share with each other.  Even I have used Little Bird Tales as an idea board for what I think a “perfect” school might look like. So, as you can imagine, “May we use Little Bird Tales for this?” is a common question in my classroom.

Little Bird Tales is very easy to use. Just upload images (or draw your own right on the site), type in text, and record your voice. Then use the link for your “tale” to share it with the world. A demo video on the site’s home page walks you through these steps as well. Judging from the things my students have come up with to do with Little Bird Tales, this site is MUCH more than just a storytelling tool.

Here's a video about little bird tales. 




Guest blogger--Shawntel Allen--dog-lover, global gypsy, teacher (at an international school in Bogota, Colombia), tech-junkie, and student (in the Master’s of Arts in Learning Technologies program at Pepperdine University.) In my “spare” time, I am working on adding coder to that list. Join the conversation on my blog, Disruptive Force, or “follow me” on Twitter, “globalgypsygirl”.