Jen Quinlan

About: Storybird
Storybird (@Storybird) is a Brooklyn-based company that self-describes as:

“a service that makes it simple for families and friends to create short, visual stories together that they can share and print. For artists and writers, Storybird is next-generation publishing: global, viral, and instantaneous.”

In The Classroom
The tool has gained momentum in education circles in use cases like:

• Fundraising - one student raised $180 for his class using the tool
• Classroom assignments - teachers have the ability to disseminate and review assignments via a teacher dashboard
• Parents - inspiriting a group of elementary students to get re-inspired about writing  

Fundraising 2.0
Of these focus areas, I am intrigued by the idea of inspiring students to create content (write books) that are then sold for fundraising. The experience teaches kids about working hard, being creative, and getting compensated. Hopefully the days of archaic fundraising efforts are over - begging like hobos for donations with buckets at intersections, slinging chocolate candy bars, or doing mediocre car washes. This model builds confidence, inspires kids to create, and creates a product that the participants can enjoy long-term too. 

Class Fundraisers turn your students’ stories into a fundraising tool. The premise is simple: you create a Fundraiser, parents buy their child’s Storybird online, and $5 is deposited into your fund with every order. When the Fundraiser is over, students and families receive their stories as beautiful books, and you get to spend the fund on whatever your class needs: supplies, technology, etc.

Self Confidence
I also love that technology-enabled creative tools like Storybird build self confidence for kids - as authors of the digital world. Writing in a composition notebook in one’s room is very different from creating an original book that gets physically produced and shared with the world.

The Artists
Oh, and the days of creating stories on a PC with clipart are long over. Storybird leverages a network of artists (example: Sebastiaan Von Doninick) that do incredible illustration work. Artists get to maintain the rights to their work and earn revenue via licensing to the site. To learn more about how to become a Storybird artist, see application process here.

Considerations for Parents
Overall, parent and teacher reviews were glowing about the tool. Storybird passed the advertiser test - meaning there are not advertisements on site targeting children or any ads for that matter. I did see some comments from educators that the site does not appear to abide with CIPA (Children Internet Protection Act) guidelines via the FCC (note: Storybird has terms in their site guidelines that appear to align with CIPA, although I was unable to specifically understand their moderation guidelines). Under CIPA, sites that focus on a kid audience need to have content moderation (ensuring content generated and posted to site is appropriate, no cursing, no bullying, etc.). It is unclear to me whether there is a content moderation component of site that reviews books submitted before they’re posted to the ‘recent’ section or printed. 

12/18/2011 - Update to blog entry:
I did get in touch with the fabulous folks at Storybird, and I wanted to verify that they ARE in full compliance with CIPA. In other words, this is a “certified” kid-friendly site for educators and families!