Telling stories with ICT: Story Maker 2.1

Helping children develop literacy skills in the new language.

HOME > NEW CD-ROM series > ICT & Story-telling > ORDER FORM

Children can make simple animated stories that speak French, German or Spanish!

HOME

NEW HyperStudio
Story Maker 2 |
Clicker

NEW Clicker MFL for French

Story Maker 2.1      
with French voices Eligible for eLCs
German or Spanish as optional extra add-ons

With Story Maker 2, children can make animated stories where figures move across the screen, make noises, speak to each other in a foreign language - even explode or disappear!

Writing in a foreign language can be fun
Children can hear StoryMaker's voice-synthesizer speak the words they write, preserving the vital link between writing and sound.

The artificial accent and intonation is very good - and there is a choice of male and female voices to add realism. They can also add their own sound recordings.

Give children a "Starter Story"

A really great idea! - Give the Starter to children in small groups, like le Château Hanté story [left].

They can play the opening screen or two that set sthe scene - and also see and hear examples of the language structures they might use.

Children then develop the story as they wish - adding animations, sound effects,dialogue...

Groups can share their efforts with the class for an enjoyable plenary.

A good selection of Starters come with Story Maker 2.1, with more suggestions in the Early Start Teacher's Manual and on-line Guide. It's easy to make your own to suit a particular topic you are teaching.

Prices: (excl. VAT and delivery)
Story Maker 2.1 with French voices
Single computer Licence:	£39
5 users:	£78
10 users:	£108
Primary site:	£135
Secondary site:	£189
German or Spanish add-on voices
Single computer Licence:	£19
5 users:	£39
10 users:	£59
Primary site:	£69
Secondary site:	£95
Eligible for eLCs
Includes French voices, a sample French story, and some French Starter Stories. There are more ideas on the Early Start on-line Teacher's Guide to "Salut! Ça va?" and "Où habites-tu?"

Age: 7 to Adult

Use with SEN pupils? No
Can be Networked? Yes
Focus: Reading and writing stories

PC:
   Windows 95 / 98 / ME / NT / 2000 / XP
486 or better machine recommended.
To hear speech and sounds you require a sound card.

Macintosh::
   Not available

STORY MAKER 2 can help with your story-writing project - see EARLY START French Pack 2: ch.12

EARLY START Spanish Pack 2: ch.12

What's the word for that?

Another useful little tool is "naming" - children can pass the cursor over objects on the screen and see - and hear - them named in French.

Bridging the gap
It's an ideal tool to bridge the awkward gap between children being able to understand and speak, towards reading and writing in the target language.

Children just love stamping pictures, sounds and speech bubbles onto their own pages - then showing them to others....

Children can soon create simple scenes with Spanish dialogue and lots of action.

Creativity
Story Maker 2 positively encourages children to write stories in the new language for others to read and play with, because is so much fun.

When you've made a story, you can give it away freely to anyone who wants to read it, so children really can write for an audience

• NEW traditional tales backgrounds + characters:
  - Cinderella
  - Jack and the (animated) Beanstalk
  - Red Riding Hood
  - Snow White
  - Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
  - The Gingerbread Man
• Lots more background scenes and figures on topics, like
  Ancient Egyptians, Spooks, Zany alphabets. Romans, Vikings, Road Safety etc. - or use your own pictures or photos as backgrounds
• French, German and Spanish spell-checkers with up-to-date dictionary - any text you write can be read out loud.

Huge library of sounds you can attach to figures - make cows moo, dogs bark, doors creak, etc.