Interested in making e-books for your students? Do you have photos of students, events or images pertaining to curricular science, social studies content that could be included in a book for your special needs student?
Digital story telling/e-book creating apps are a wonderful way to create books pertaining to school events, students, curriculum topics and vocabulary that supports your students classroom or functional life skills curriculum?
With photos readily available or taken on the iPad2, iPod 4th Gen or retrieved from sources on the Internet (and are public under the creative commons license) that would support student vocabulary and concept development, story telling apps are an easy way to create or adapt curriculum materials for special needs students. Here are some new story telling apps as well as those that have been around awhile that will allow you to easily create stories and books that read aloud. Features I look for in story telling or book creating apps include audio and text capabilities that read the book aloud and provide text for our emergent readers and visual learners. Here are some choices as well as links below to several great reviews from others on story telling apps:
Ebook Creator is a low cost ($3.99) app for iPod/iPad/iPhone that imports pictures from you Photo Album as well as taking a photo within the app when creating an ebook. Easy to use this story telling app provides a recording feature to vocally narrate your story as well as the ability to type text in the story. Background music can also be played in the back ground if desired.
One eBook Creator feature I like is the ability to share or email the book. Sharing allows you to make the story book on your own device and send it you your students or parents. Many of my students have visual schedules or their communication boards on their dedicated devices making their iPad an essential part of their day and limiting the ability to modify or add to their device during the school day. Emailing such stories allows those who support from other locations the convenience of making those changes or additions from a distance!
SonicPics ($2.99) for iPod/iPad/iPhone (a lite version is also available) which turns your pictures into a video. This app also allows you to share the video story you create with others and provides audio recording and inserting text in a slide/photo.
Two other inexpensive and easy to use story telling apps previously reviewed ( from February 2011 AT 4 Education Blog) are:
Storyrobe
StoryRobe app is a quick and easy to use to story making tool allowing you to use existing photos or images from your Photos folder. I allow you to record a story line but does have text tools to write the words on the pictures in the story. Simple and easy to use, you can have a photo story slide show going in no time. If you have a caption app, you can edit your photos with a text caption on the pictures for use in StoryRobe. It is an easy to use app allowing you to create an e-book in no time at all.
A 3 minute Storyrobe tutorial is included in the Tutorial link below. $.99, it is compatible with iPad, iPod and iPhone.
Story Kit
StoryKit app provides the tools to create a story book you can digitally narrate as well as type text to create a book using images in your Photos album. Story Kit also provides a simple drawing tool that can be used to draw a picture while creating the story. Story Kit is free and for iPad, iPod and iPhone.
Find a 6 minute tutorial on the link below that will get you started being a digital storytelling author!
Tutorial Link:
https://sites.google.com/site/digitalstorytellingwiththeipad/app-tutorials
More Storytelling Resources:
Karen Janowski, on her outstanding EdTech Solutions Blog, recently reviewed storytelling apps. Visit her blog for a review on above apps as well as for purchase storytelling apps for iPad and iPod Touch devices. Check them out at http://teachingeverystudent.blogspot.com/ .
Here is another great resource on story telling apps, comic strip apps as well more serious book publishing apps that is well worth visiting:
http://storykeepers.wikispaces.com/iPad+StoryTelling+APPS
So many ways to use the pictures you have gathered on your kids or create content on curriculum topics for your students. What an accessible way to create content for your students! Make science or social studies books, tell stories and share them with your class and families.
Another story telling app to consider is Pictello. I have not used this app due to the price ($18.99) but was developed by the makers of Proloquo2go and should be worth checking into!
Happy story telling!!
Carol
OT's with Apps & Technology 
I also know a hidden gem, is called “i Tell a Story”, it allows children to narrate and record their stories. But as a complete audio recording and editing tool, there are countless other uses, such as having adults record stories and messages for the little ones in their lives to listen to. Add funny sounds and music if you want, plus a picture, title, and your name, and send your audio book for others to enjoy.
Great if you want to encourage you child in the process of learning how to read.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/i-tell-a-story/id420367212?mt=8
Thank you Nicole for sharing! iTell a Story sounds somewhat like Sonic Pic and Tapikeo in many ways with pictures and audio recording made easy. There are so many and so many possibilities with them – students narrate stories, use vocabulary word like photo flash cards made by students …
Thank you again for sharing and taking the time to comment!
Carol