My Take
I really liked this app as did my students. It was very easy to use and required very little instruction on my part. After a brief tutorial, my kids took off with it and quickly figured out how to use the app. My favorite part of the app is the voice narration and the ability for my kids to tell a story or demonstrate what they learned using their own voice. Because the app requires an adobe account to publish the digital stories, we were unable to do that part, but they were able to make the story and it is saved in the app. I think teachers could definitely adapt this app and use it in a variety of ways in any content area.
How I Use It
I have used this product as a culminating project for my 7th graders to demonstrate what they learned during our reading unit on perseverance. They were very engaged and figured out how to use the app easily. Because it uses voice narration, the kids were able to practice using the academic vocabulary learned in the unit, while also incorporating images and icons. It would have worked better if each of my students had their own individual iPad, but due to limited iPads, my students had to create the story in pairs. Also, the iPad microphone picks up on all outside noise, so trying to record 34 voices at the same time didn't work too well.
I see using it in the future for book chats, where my students will create a digital story about their favorite independent reading book from the trimester or school year.