StoryboardThat

It's time for a tech tip...why? Because it's Tuesday!

I was all set to send out another tip concerning time management and productivity this week, but then I had a veritable water cooler conversation with a colleague that changed my mind. Our discussion reminded me of one of my favorite TV series. I won't bore you with details, but I will say that the writing and plotting of the show's last season was so intricate, so riddled with foreshadowing and visual metaphors, that it prompted my lingering interest in storyboarding. 

From an educational perspective, storyboarding has lots of benefits. It teaches students to plan, to organize their thoughts, and to make abstract ideas more concrete. Of course, video content can be storyboarded, but so can written content, like short stories or narratives. I've been playing with a web tool called StoryboardThat that makes the process quite fun. The free version is more restricted than paid subscriptions, but it offers an intuitive interface and lots of backgrounds and images that students can manipulate. A storyboard created on that site would make a fun project in itself, but also a useful precursor to more involved assignments.

Enjoy!