How I Use It
My 3rd and 4th graders read the books I published and my younger students published, and then wrote reviews. The 1st and 2nd graders worked in teams. Each team was a assigned 1 page in a class book (I selected the artwork before class) in which they wrote about. The result was a class book I published on my web page. Students couldn't wait to show off their published book to family. When working as a team, student teams gathered around a computer to brainstorm and write their part of the story on paper. Later when it was time to publish, I had 1 computer logged in and set up as the editing station. They took turns writing on the site. Because the site is auto-saving, many users cannot be working on the same project at the same time. (At least not the way I had set up the class.) Students could use the site for collaborative projects or work alone. As a teacher you can assign topics or language arts skills you wish students to include. Writers need to make many creative and critical decisions when choosing artwork or finding the story "hidden" in the illustrations! Users have the opportunity to comment on stories they read. This provides the opportunity to teach great Digital Citizenship and Safety lessons too. Some of my colleagues (4th grade teachers) are using it with their students. Each student has their own account. The teacher poses a challenge, students search for the artwork to meet that challenge, and then write the story.
Love this site for creative writing and reading. You choose the artwork from the site's extensive library of images. Put them in an order that tells a story. The story comes from what you see within the artwork. Don't go into it with an idea, rather, look for the story hidden in the pictures. After discussing how different authors can use the same artwork that you choose but write totally different stories, my students challenged me to do just that. The students wrote a class story. I wrote my own using the exact same artwork. We read each other's totally different stories and had a blast comparing them!