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Story Xperiential
Pros: The focus on feedback teaches students that storytelling isn’t a solitary process; opportunity to showcase true creativity and imagination.
Cons: Students choose external media creation tools and not picking a suitable tool might hinder the whole experience; course outline isn’t immediately clear.
Bottom Line: The storyreel development process pushes students to learn more as they build connections with their audience.
How Can I Teach with This Tool?
Ever watched a Pixar movie and wondered how they create such amazing stories? Well, some folks from Pixar and other studios are spilling their secrets! They’ve created Story Xperiential, a 40-ish-hour interactive course hosted and facilitated by professional animators asynchronously. Many schools choose to facilitate the course during a 9-week grading period, but you can choose a timeline that works best for you.
Over the course of eight lessons, students navigate the modules on the site to create a rough draft for an animated film called a storyreel. The sequence of the course isn’t immediately clear, but students can move through it once their bearings are established. Each lesson consists of a few short videos, along with an objective, teacher guides, and a series of exercises related to creating a story with simple animations. At the end of each lesson, students submit a short video.
The tool does not offer built in drawing or video editing tools, but provides links and suggestions for doing so. Students are required to offer feedback on other submissions and they will receive their own feedback from their teacher, other course participants, and professional animators. There are also public galleries of other student’s work that correspond to each section. As students refine their characters and stories, they are building short films, which they can submit to a global exhibition. Every two weeks, Story Xperiential hosts a live webinar, during which students are encouraged to ask questions.
Teachers can be as hands on or off in the process as they wish. Student progress and comments appear on a dashboard which allows you to manage your group(s). There are a lot of supports built into the program, but some students may benefit from in-person feedback or project management support. Students can participate as individuals or as teams, so you’ll need to decide which works best for your classroom (it may be a combination). Story Xperiential’s main goal is to develop a great story, not great artwork, but students may feel most successful working in teams. Consider pairing a strong writer with a good artist, for example. Because voiceover is an important component in the storyreel, you may pair a vocal student with a quiet student. Though students will be tempted to focus on their own work, encourage them to watch and comment on videos submitted by their peers, because learning to give and take feedback may be the greatest takeaway.
Learning Rating
This resource is very well designed and easy to use. Everything you will need to be successful is provided in the program.
I loved how everything was provided in the program to make the teacher's job easier and gave me time to focus on the students and their work. I was thrilled that it required students to give and receive feedback on their work, exercising their communication skills and leading to re-iterations and critical thinking. These students were able to collaborate with others through the feedback process. I would love some additional support from the technical side of the process in the animation, recording, uploading and using various other technical programs for students to create on. Some students struggled with getting their drawings or sets uploaded.
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