Personalised Creativity

STORY MAKER

INTRODUCTION

INSTRUCTION FOR USE

PERSONALISED CREATIVITY

USE IN THE CLASSROOM

A critical review of the Storymaker website.

is a fun interactive site for primary to middle school age students.

It has the potential to excite a young audience and get them involved in story writing.

http://www.carnegielibrary.org/kids/storymaker/

Storymaker would appeal to the emerging technological generation and strike favor with the Rudd Government and Education Queensland who are encouraging an increased technological component to the curriculum in education centre's of learning.

The site allows for personal creativity. Participants are able to choose characters, settings, items and scenery items from a reasonable range of choices. The characters can also participate in a variety o feelings, actions and interactions with other characters or objects. When completed books can be printed or published. To publish one must be registered and logged into the site.

You can choose to play an instructional video clip or begin writing your book. Click on your choice.

In PREVIEW mode you view the book as it will print.

If you choose the share option your book will then be published.

Bamaga Children creating ‘Sea’ artworks

Children have their own creative way of telling stories visually. Each drawing has its own story. Tabrani Primadi, Professor from ITB Indonesia, (as cited in, Ahmad and Soo-Min) states ‘They do not only draw what they see, but a result of collaboration between all of their senses, thoughts and imagination.’ He compares children’s drawings to pre-historic, and avante-garde artists work that follow right brain strategies and exist within a Space-Time-Plane (STP).

Each picture contains several scenes that move in time and space. For example one would not only see a drawing of a house but a vision of what is inside the house and events taking place. Objects of importance are drawn larger. Near objects drawn low on the picture plane and distant objects are placed higher or to the back of the picture plane. This is compared with the Naturalistic-Perspective Moment (NPM) where the system works like a camera, recording things and people as they are, following the left brain system of linear perspective.

This drawing by a five year old boy, (the one with glasses) clearly demonstrates the bullying he suffers from his older sister.(Drawing reproduced in Edwards, 1979).The drawing displays raw emotion and passion.

Although the story maker does have a facility for including feelings, actions and interactions the results are not as imaginative as an original drawing.