Grade range: K-12
What is it? Social storytelling fun, but denies kids their own art.
Pros: A huge collection of curated art provides kid-authors with distinct and inspiring illustrations.
Cons: Kids can’t add their own art to stories, which limits creativity a bit.
Bottom line: For anyone interested in kid-authored storybooks, it’s a great resource with substantial free features.
Review: http://beta.graphite.org/website/storybird
Grade range: K-12
What is it? Easily collaborate and create with voice, video, or images.
Pros: Versatility is off the charts here; kids can put together multimedia projects that integrate image, voice, text, and much more.
Cons: Bandwidth can be a problem if an entire class is working on wireless.
Bottom line: A powerful tool for kids to create, collaborate, and share all kinds of multimedia.
Review: http://beta.graphite.org/website/voicethread
Grade range: 1-5
What is it? Sensitively designed so any student can write and share books.
Pros: UDL Book Builder’s commitment to a variety of learning styles makes the site a great tool for kids and educators.
Cons: There aren’t too many bells and whistles in Book Builder—no font choices or ways to resize photos, which means the books aren’t as visually appealing as they could be.
Bottom line: CAST UDL Book Builder is an excellent resource to get kids started on digital content creation: It’s simple, straightforward, and caters to a variety of learning styles.
Review: http://beta.graphite.org/website/cast-udl-book-builder
