📲 WRITING with STORYJUMPER: Selfies and Taking Risks

📲Selfies and Taking Risks 📱

Objective:

Students will create a short digital story using StoryJumper about a character who takes a risk when taking a selfie.

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Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Explain StoryJumper (5-7 minutes)

Before starting, give students a short explanation in Spanish about how to use StoryJumper:

• ¿Qué es StoryJumper?
  Es una página web para crear libros digitales con imágenes y texto.

• ¿Cómo se usa?

1. Ir a www.storyjumper.com

2. Hacer clic en "Empezar un libro".

3. Elegir un fondo y añadir personajes.

4. Escribir texto en cada página.

5. Guardar y compartir el libro.

EJEMPLO DE TRABAJO REALIZADO POR ALUMNOS: LINK

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2. Introduce the Task (5 minutes)

• Tell students:
  "Today, you will create a short story about a person who takes a selfie in a dangerous situation. Use simple sentences and pictures to tell the story."

• Give an example:
  "Ana takes a selfie near a cliff. She does not see the wind is strong. What happens next?"

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3. Brainstorm Ideas (10 minutes)

• Ask students to think of dangerous selfie situations (e.g., on a mountain, near an animal, in the middle of the road).

• Write 3-4 ideas on the board.

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4. Create the Story on StoryJumper (20 minutes)

• Students log into StoryJumper and create their stories in 5-6 pages:

1. Introduce the character (Who is taking the selfie?)

2. Describe/choose the place (Where is the selfie taken?)

3. Show the risk (What is the danger?)

4. Describe the problem (What happens because of the selfie?)

5. The ending (What happens next? Is there a lesson?)

Example of simple sentences:

• "Lucas was on a bridge. He took a selfie. The bridge was old."

• "The bridge broke". Lucas fell into the river."

• "Lucas learned to be careful with selfies."

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5. Share and Discuss (10 minutes)

• Students present their digital books in pairs or small groups.

• Ask: "Is the character lucky or not?" / "What can we learn?"

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Materials Needed:

✅ Computers or tablets
✅ Internet connection
✅ www.storyjumper.com

This task helps students practice past simple, sequencing, and storytelling, while using digital tools creatively. 😊

Reflection on the Selfies and Taking Risks Activity

1. How did you organize the groups?

I allowed students to work in pairs to encourage collaboration while ensuring that each student had an active role. Pairing weaker students with slightly stronger ones helped facilitate learning and confidence. I also considered students' comfort levels with technology, ensuring that each group had at least one person familiar with using digital tools.

2. What was the sequence of tasks that you followed to get to the final product?

The activity followed a structured sequence to guide students toward the final digital story:

1. Introduction and Explanation (5-7 minutes): I introduced the task, explaining how StoryJumper works in Spanish to ensure all students understood.

2. Task Introduction (5 minutes): I explained the assignment in English and provided a simple example of a dangerous selfie scenario.

3. Brainstorming (10 minutes): Students thought of risky selfie situations and shared ideas as a class. I wrote their ideas on the board to provide inspiration.

4. Story Creation on StoryJumper (20 minutes): Students worked on their digital books, structuring their stories with five key steps (character introduction, setting, risk, problem, resolution).

5. Sharing and Discussion (10 minutes): Students presented their stories to small groups or the whole class, reflecting on the dangers of reckless selfies.

3. What were the specific learning objectives for this activity? How did the use of the tool help the learners achieve these objectives?

The main learning objectives were:

• Language Skills: Practicing past simple tense and sequencing events in a logical way.

• Storytelling Skills: Developing a short, structured narrative with a beginning, middle, and end.

• Digital Literacy: Using an online platform to create and present content.

• Critical Thinking: Reflecting on the consequences of risky behavior when taking selfies.

Using StoryJumper helped learners achieve these objectives by providing a visual and interactive platform where they could illustrate their stories. For example, a student struggling with writing was able to add meaningful images that complemented their text, reinforcing their understanding of storytelling.

4. In what ways was creativity and the use of imagination encouraged in your students?

Students were encouraged to use their imagination by:

• Choosing unique characters and dangerous settings (e.g., taking a selfie near a volcano, with a wild animal, on a rooftop).

• Deciding on unexpected outcomes (e.g., the selfie leads to a funny accident, a close escape, or a lesson learned).

• Selecting and arranging images creatively on StoryJumper to make their stories visually appealing.

• Writing dialogue to make the story more engaging (e.g., "Wait! Be careful!").

5. What did your students enjoy most / least about this activity?

Most enjoyed:
✔️ The freedom to create their own stories and use digital tools instead of traditional writing exercises.
✔️ Adding funny or dramatic twists to their stories.
✔️ Working in pairs or groups, which made the activity feel less stressful.

Least enjoyed:
❌ Some students found it challenging to write in English without making mistakes.
❌ A few struggled with using StoryJumper at first, but they quickly adapted with peer support.

6. What would you change next time?

• Provide a template or sentence starters to support lower-level students in writing their stories (e.g., “One day, ___ went to ___ to take a selfie. But suddenly…”).

• Allow students to act out their stories before creating them, helping them visualize the sequence of events.

• Give more time for peer feedback to help students refine their stories.

7. How were the finished projects shared with the rest of the class?

Students presented their stories in small groups and later uploaded their books to their blog portfolio, where everyone could view and comment on each other's work.

8. What opportunities were there for students to co-evaluate and discuss the learning experience with each other?

• A peer review session allowed students to give positive feedback and suggest improvements, two stars and one wish, (e.g., “I like your ending, but you could add more details about the risk.”).

• They reflected on the lesson learned in their stories and discussed how it applies to real life.

👀👂Listening with Edpuzzle

Now that we have started a new Learning Situation called PUSHING LIMITS, we have posed a warm up question: 
Do you often take risks?
(Scaffolding or model answers: I take risks when I practice/do… I don’t take risks because I…)

There's going to be a series of videos in 👀👂Edpuzzle as homework, flipped classroom, for team work or warm up.

The following video is a warm up in classroom, students are encoraged to work in pairs before deciding their answer, the teacher could replay if students require, so they become familiar with this learning tool. The video is about death by selfie, if it is worth dying for the perfect selfie.

Students have enjoyed this task and a lot of discussion has arosen.

Follow up activities were:

1. We dictate a sentence from the video and they tell how many words there are in the sentence.

2. Create a poll

3. Interview their family and friends

4. Create statistics with this piece of data.

The ADANTAGES of using short videos are that students do not become bored and that images can help to understand global information, the DISADVANTAGE is that when assigned for homework, some students have problems with technology or they forget about homework! 😭

Here are some learning objectives for your PUSHING LIMITS learning situation:

Communication & Language Skills:

1. Expressing opinions and personal experiences: Students will be able to articulate their thoughts on risk-taking using scaffolded sentence structures (e.g., I take risks when I… / I don’t take risks because…).
2. Developing discussion skills: Students will engage in pair and group discussions, justifying their viewpoints and responding to others' perspectives.
3. Enhancing listening comprehension: Students will improve their ability to understand spoken English by watching and analyzing videos on Edpuzzle.

Critical Thinking & Media Literacy:

4. Analyzing risk-taking behaviors: Students will evaluate the consequences of risky behaviors, such as taking dangerous selfies, and discuss the impact of social media on decision-making.
5. Interpreting data and statistics: Students will collect, analyze, and present information from their interviews and poll results in a meaningful way.

Research & Data Analysis:

6. Conducting surveys: Students will design and implement a poll to gather data on risk-taking habits.
7. Interviewing others: Students will practice formulating and asking relevant questions to family and friends about their attitudes toward risk.
8. Creating visual representations of data: Students will compile their findings into statistics, charts, or graphs and present them to the class.

🎤 Listening to a song with bottom-up and top-down strategies

🎤  Listening to a song with bottom-up and top-down strategies🎤
    In one of my classes, we did a listening activity where students had to complete missing lyrics from a song. This is a great example of bottom-up listening because they had to focus on individual sounds, words, and phrases to understand the lyrics. They were paying attention to pronunciation, linking sounds, and specific vocabulary rather than the overall meaning.

    We also did a listening activity using a song, but instead of focusing on missing words, we worked on understanding the overall meaning and message first (top-down strategies). Before playing the song, I gave students the title and a few key phrases from the lyrics. They discussed what the song might be about, it was Christmas, so it was easy.
Then, as they listened, their task was to identify the main themes—love, sadness, etc.—and connect them to their own experiences or prior knowledge. After listening, I told them to choose from different activities, such as, create a choreography, karaoke battle, musical chairs,... It was a memorable day.

Timetoast for education

 🔛 I've known lately about Timetoast for timelines and I have carried out a task to motivate my students. First, they had to talk about their lives and create an original poster. Here are some examples:

Once they understood how to develop a timeline I told them to choose an athlete or sport they liked, to look for a text about him/her/it and to create a timeline with Timetoast. 

Here are some examples:

Cristiano Ronaldo Timeline

Cristiano Ronaldo's injuries

Messi Timeline

    The learning objectives of the activity were that they order events in chronological order, that they use the past simple to talk about any events in the past and that they improve their digital portflio.

    The advantages of using TimeToast for this activity were many, they were always motivated when using computers, they could translate online vocabulary, they could look for pictures to make it more attractive, they attached this activity in their blog/porfolio.

    The steps I followed to set up the activity were the following:

1. I gave them a set of sentences about someone's life and told them to write them in the past.

2. Then, I asked them to write in a postit any event about them.

3. Next, the whole group stood up and ordered the postits in chronological order.

4. Eventually, they made their life's timelines in a poster.

5. Finally, they had to do the same but with an athlete or sport, looking for a text in the internet and afterwards taking major events and introducing them in their timeline in TIMETOAST. 

6. Co-evalution was done with 2 stars and 1 wish: 2 things they liked about each other's timelines and 1 thing they needed to improve. 

    The students liked TimeToast tool and were happy to complete the task digitally.

    Some things that I would change / improve next time maybe that we all work with the same text, because they spent a lot of time looking for and choosing one.

    TimeToast helped me achieve my learning objectives through ordering events automatically, improving their digital portfolios and continuing to revise and practice with past simple forms. 

📃Reading strategies and foldables

One of my favorite strategies for reading tasks is the Predict-Skim-Scan-Create approach. This method engages students through top-down strategies and extensive reading, fostering comprehension and creativity.

Step 1: Prediction
Before reading, students predict content based on the title, headlines, images, or the first sentence. This activates prior knowledge and sets a purpose for reading. They discuss predictions in pairs and after that with the class.
Step 2: Skimming
Students skim the text to grasp the main idea by reading the introduction, key sentences, and conclusion. They first work individually, then compare findings in pairs.
Step 3: Scanning
They then scan the text for specific information like key names, dates, or arguments, working in pairs or groups to locate details efficiently. I LOVE TO USE FOLDABLES where they write sequences of events or note down information about 5Ws, etc.
Step 4: Creative Follow-Up
Students transform their understanding through creative tasks such as rewriting endings, designing infographics, or acting out scenes. Tasks are collaborative.

This approach enhances comprehension, keeps reading interactive, and fosters creativity. FOLDABLES are also adaptable for various text types, making it an invaluable teaching tool. Nevertheless it takes time to prepare, it also takes a lot of class time. Therefore I sometimes assign some steps as homework.