My new favorite thing is ZooBurst. It was love at first play!
ZooBurst is a FREE digital storytelling tool that is designed to let anyone easily create their own customized 3D pop-up books. It requires a username and password to login and create a book and right now you have to request an account. They are hoping, in the near future, to offer classroom management capabilities allowing teachers to create and manage classroom accounts for their students.
One thing that makes ZooBurst so unique is that the books are 3D. As each page of the book opens, the clip art on the page pops up. You can also tilt and turn the page around (click and drag) looking at all angles of the page. The other unique feature is that ZooBurst has Augmented Reality (AR) capability. All you need is a webcam. See their website for more information about how to make the AR work.
Creating a book couldn’t be easier. You add clipart to each page of the book from either their ‘Open Clip Art Library’ of public domain vector art images, or you can upload your own including photographs. I used graphics I created, photographs, and clipart I found on public domain websites. Using the drag-and-drop interface, you move the graphic to the desired location on the page. Graphics can also be sized and rotated. The author can select one of a few options for a background for the book and also choose a different color for each page. Shadows for the graphics can be left on or turned off. The graphics can be double-sided or have a solid color back. Since all angles of the page can be viewed, you can have different scenes on a page like one in front of a building and one behind (or inside).
Once you’ve added clipart, you can choose to add text in two locations: to any of the clipart added to a page (in a word bubble) and/or to the page. Chat bubbles and page narration are hidden when there is not custom text associated (with the clipart or page).
You can create books up to 10 pages long. A new feature released on May 15 was a replay button now located at the end of the book. Another reason why I love this resource is that when I expressed a need for a change in the program and suggested some improvements, I received feedback very quickly and the suggestions are being considered and some have even been added.
Teachers will love ZooBurst. Besides using it to tell stories, think of it for book reports/talks and projects like timelines, biographies, and reporting on a topic. I created one for students in an SDA class (specially designed academics). These students would use a switch to advance the pages of the book. Clipart of insects and word art pop up on each page which allows the students to see pictures of the insects they had learned out in class.
Completed books are easily embedded into webpages and blogs. Just copy and paste the code for each book.
A couple suggestions/observations I have about ZooBurst:
- Save periodically as you work. (While making one book I left for lunch and when I returned half an hour later I discovered that my pages were now blank.) You can always return to a book and edit at any time.
- Clipart with transparent backgrounds work best. If you are fortunate to have a graphics program that allows you to create transparent graphics, you may need to use this tool before uploading some of your own clipart.
- Sometimes when you click on a graphic to move or resize it, it gets quirky and jumps on you. If you have trouble clicking on it again (because it is now behind another graphic) tilt or rotate the page for easier access, move the graphic to its new location, and then move the page back.
- When viewing the book, if you turn or tilt the page, when you turn to the next page it will also be tilted/turned in the same way as the previous page.
Things I hope to see in the future:
- The ability to create a book with more than 10 pages. (ZooBurst is working on this one.)
- The ability to control the order of the pop-ups. I thought the order I placed them on the page would make a difference, but it didn’t.
- And while I’m dreaming, being able to record voice (narration for text) would be icing on the cake.
