My APPetite for teaching writing satiated by Storywheel

My APP that I chose for my APP of the week video on you tube was Storywheel. I learned about the Storywheel APP when I was presenting at the Ed Tech Teacher iPad Summit in Atlanta, Georgia last month. I used Storywheel immediately in an after school program where I was teaching reading and writing skills to fifth graders. What I found was that in a short time, this APP really helped students improve their writing. The APP allows the students in the class to select a theme for the story. Once you select a theme you can insert as many as four “players” who help tell the story. When it is a players turn they spin a wheel of images designed to stimulate their creative storytelling thought processes. Once the wheel stops on a image the student records their voice-over creating an original story on the spot. I love this APP for a few different reasons. First of all it encourages student confidence in relation to their written expression skills. Once they see how good they are at oral story telling it makes them more eager to them put pen to paper. The other reason this was my APP of the week was because of the sense of collaboration that it fostered when my writing students used the APP to create a story together. They were so proud of their work that they wanted to publish it immediately. Thanks to Storywheel for turning the cogs of meta-cognition.