This free contemporary storytelling tool for Mac and PC lets you bring together images, video, music, text and web grabs on virtual pages, making creative writing interactive and fun. It is based on my own multimedia-fuelled writing process, bringing the writing process alive for people who think visually, interactively and aurally, as well as textually.
Story Scrapbook lets you tell stories your way. A contemporary story tool for contemporary learners / creators. (Any trouble installing – get the latest version of Adobe Air! Leave a comment below if you're still having issues.)
Here's a 2-minute how-to video:
Download the app by clicking 'Install Now' above, try it, send us your thoughts via email or in comments at the bottom of this page. We want to build a community around the app and to improve it based on your ideas and feedback. Here are the latest updates thanks to you.
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| Sample Story Scrapbook Page |
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| Sample Page including images, music, sticky notes, web grabs and a map. |
STory Scrapbook Teacher Review
Click here to download the pdf for the Quickstart guide. Or just start playing. It's simple and powerful.
Digital storytelling, multimedia scrapbooking, story 2.0, Digital story, Multimedia, Pre-visualisation.
35 comments:
This is a great tool - I've just been playing around with it for the last hour or so. What I can't figure out though is what to do with the finished product. Tips?
Hey Abena
Thanks for playing with the app. I recommend, in FILE menu, saving the page as an image. It saves as a PNG file. Then you can blog it or pin it on Pinterest or share it however you like. Let me know if this does or doesn't work for you.
T
Thanks Tristan for the idea. I'm guessing from this that there's no way to export the file as an interactive story then? Never mind; it's a great product and I'm sure the learners will have a great time being creative with it.
Thanks again, especially for sharing.
Hey Abena. You can't export as an interactive story right now but you will be able to in future versions. This is the beta so it's really great to get this feedback from you on what you would like the app to be able to do. Cheers! T
Thanks for letting me know about future developments. I'll be keeping an eye out for sure!
This does look great. I think it would be good to be able to embed it in our learning platform like you can glogster or wallwisher.
Was going to use it straight away with my class to present some writing they've done - so shame you can't paste into it. Saving as a pdf defeats the object of adding sound & movie at the moment.
Will certainly be interested in how it develops.
Thanks Mrs Crolla. This is a really valuable email in terms of us improving the app while it's in beta. We're looking to develop an online HTML version that integrates more easily into other platforms so watch this space. Appreciate the feedback.
On my desk I have piles upon piles of notes. This app allows me to consolidate those notes into an easy to access visual aide. I don't have to flip through hundreds of pages of notes to find something. The Story Scrapbook is a very helpful tool and I am glad to have it.
On my desk I have piles upon piles of notes. This app allows me to consolidate those notes into an easy to access visual aide. I don't have to flip through hundreds of pages of notes to find something. The Story Scrapbook is a very helpful tool and I am glad to have it.
Thanks Jeremy. I love the idea of using the app to bring together mountains of notes and ideas and images.
Hi Tristan
This has helped me finalize my story to send to the publishers
Excellent! Great to hear its been useful. Good luck with the publisher. T
Hi Tristan
I've installed the latest version of adobe Air onto my Macbook Air, but when I try to install Story Scrapbook, it shows the loading icon, then just reverts to the original. I've checked applications and downloads, but it's not there. Please help.
Hi Helen
Apologies for this. An updated Flash might help but to expedite the process for you, please leave a comment here with your email address or email contact@tristanbancks.com and I will email you the latest version of the app.
Best,
Tristan.
Hi Tristan what's your latest books
Hi Bodhi.
'Galactic Adventures First Kids in Space' and 'My Life & Other Stuff I Made Up' are my latest books in Australia and 'Mac Slater Vs The City' in the US. Hope you get a chance to read one of them.
;-)
Tristan.
Hi Tristan,
I want to use this with my class, but they can't download programs on the school computers. Is there an online version that doesn't require a download?
Bec
Hi Bec.
Not yet but there will be an HTML5 version by early next year, I hope. We have learnt so much in the past few months road-testing the app in workshops. If you find the person with the administrator password you should be able to download it onto school computers.
Good luck! And thanks for the feedback. We're working on it.
T
hi TRISTAN REMEMBER THE BROOKLYN/COWAN BOOKFAIR I WAS THE 1 WHO KEPT ANSWERING MOST OF THE QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTED IN THE PLAY WOLRD OR SOMETHING THAT ALL THE LITTLE KIDS WENT BERZERK
Nice. Thanks 'Anonymous'. Hope you enjoyed the talk. It was fun brainstorming ideas for the stories. Hope you're feeling inspired.
T.
Hey Tristan, You were recently at my school, you were awesome! I've just being searching around with your Brainstorming app as I get to know how to use it. It's coming along pretty easily as I great a new short book with one of my friends.
Thanks Mitchell. Glad you enjoyed the visit. Love to hear how your story develops. Co-writing makes the process more fun, I think. G'luck with it.
T.
Hi me and my friends was doing a plan for a story on story scrapbook and we relised that it would be awesome if in future we could print our plan. Thanks for comming to JPC to give us such a great learning tool!
Hi Tristan,
You were at my school last Friday and, as girls said after you're stories on assmembly, you had everyone, including the teachers, in stiches! Anyway, I have been playing around with Story Scrapbook all day, and I've even made an acount with SoundCloud, but I've been having trouble with music. I have some cool sounds I have trying to move from my laptop onto SoundCloud to put onto Story Scrapbook, but they never work. And they also are not already on SoundCloud. Is there another way to put music onto Story Scrapbook?
Natasha
This app is great!
I'm currently using it to create a group of mystery genre short stories. I'm planning to make a group of short stories for every fiction genre ever. I'm hoping to become a very amazing author, and you were a inspiration. Thx.
P.S You came to PEGS and I was one of the kids in year 6.
Sincerely,
David a.k.a Gifted Gamer
This app is great!
I'm currently using it to create a group of mystery genre short stories. I'm planning to make a group of short stories for every fiction genre ever. I'm hoping to become a very amazing author, and you were a inspiration. Thx.
P.S You came to PEGS and I was one of the kids in year 6.
Sincerely,
David.
I think I sent this twice.
Hi Tristan its not letting me download story Scrapbook.Any ideas so i can open story scrapbook.
Hey Samantha. Thanks for the idea of offering a Print option on Story Scrapbook. Will definitely keep in mind and pass it on to Ben, the programmer and designer.
Natasha, thanks for the note re: Soundcloud. Currently it is the only way to put music on the app but we are working on other ways. The issue is file size but hopefully we'll find a solution. I have found Soundcloud pretty straightforward so maybe give it another shot?
Also, there's a new version of the app up today with lots of improvements! Hope you get a chance to download. ;-)
Hey David / Gifted Gamer. Thanks for the message, mate. How is the app going? And the writing? Glad you're feeling inspired. T
Hey Olivia. The best way to ensure that Story Scrapbook will download is to update your Adobe Air and Flash. Air is here: http://get.adobe.com/air/
Flash is here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
And, if you're at school, you just need to ask if the tech people can help you to allow the app to be downloaded onto school computers.
Let me know if that helps!
T
Hey Tristan my name is amber clifford from calamvale community college and I loved it when you talked to the students a big thanks and also I just told my sister that I saw you and she said she knew you her name is katelyn clifford thanks Amber Clifford
Hey I go to C.C.C and I loved the talk and especially the story my sister Katelyn Clifford says you might remember her thanks she would love it if you answer please
Hello Tristan
The tool is great but for some reason I can't write when I have the stick notes and the text blob.
How do I write with them?
Hi Amber
Thanks so much for writing. Glad you enjoyed the session at CCC. I had a great day, too.
Anonymous, to write text in Story Scrapbook you just click the Text Tool (the big 'T') on the left-hand-sife of the screen.
Cheers!
T
After being in one of your sessions, I thought about what you had shown my group and thought of entering a short story in a competition. I am writing this story because I was inspired by you. Thanks.
Hey Miss Bluesilk.
That's very cool that you've been inspired to enter your short story into a competition. The more you get your work out there, in competitions, school magazines, blogs, fan fiction sites etc, the easier it will be later to get longer work published and to draw readers to your work. So go you.
Let me know how you get on.
Tristan.
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