There are many ways to use 30hands Storyteller with students to get them hands-on with learning. Don't just make it a Project, but make it Project-Based Learning. The difference is huge and gets your students to gain greater 21st Century skills, including

• Self-directed learning
• Teamwork
• Iterative creativity
• Problem-solving
• Self-evaluation and improvement
• Focus on details and quality

Below are some Project-Based Learning ideas, organized by age level. Feel free to mix and match the random and structured concepts to best fit your class dynamics. 

Team Created Story - Random (Elementary School)
For elementary students in ELA, it may not be necessary to define a topic. Creating a story from random pictures or images can stimulate creative thought, self-direction and iterative learning. If you want to have a little more structure, define a topic that allows the students to use some poetic license to create a unique story that differs from the other teams' stories.

1. Students take random photos or find random images.
2. Students arrange the images in a way to invent a story.
3. Students begin narrating the story over the pictures.
4. Students preview the story and discuss revisions.
5. What can be improved?
6. Are there gaps in the story?
7. Are there extra slides that are unnecessary?
8. Is the story too long or too short?
9. Students add pictures, re-record the narration, etc. to create a new draft.
10. Students preview the story again and revise.
11. Now, the story should be ready to publish. Click the Publish button to create the final video.

Team Created Story - Random (Middle School)
The teacher selects a general topic related to the course subject area, such as "Greek History", "Chapter 3", etc. Since the goal is to get the students to think independently and take the initiative in making a decision, the topics should not be too detailed.

1. Students create a story in teams of 3-5. 
2. Students take random photos or find random images.
3. Students arrange the images on the 30hands mobile desktop in a way to invent a story.
4. Students script out the story by writing it down in sequence.
5. Students begin narrating the story over the pictures.
6. Students preview the story and discuss revisions.
7. What can be improved?
8. Are there gaps in the story?
9. Are there extra slides that are unnecessary?
10. Is the story too long or too short?
11. Students add pictures, re-record the narration, etc. to create a new draft.
12. Students preview the story again and revise.
13. Now, the story should be ready to publish. Click the Publish button to create the final video.

• Depending on your goals and how detailed you want the presentation to be, this activity can be done during a single class or over multiple weeks.
• Help the students learn to work in teams. Coach them, discuss problems that arise in teams, talk about what makes a great team and give them ideas on how to overcome obstacles such as teammates who are not helping. 

Team Created Story - Structured (High School)
The teacher selects a general topic related to the course subject area, such as "Greek History", "Chapter 3", etc. Since the goal is to get the students to think independently and take the initiative in making a decision, the topics should not be too detailed. 

1. Students create a story in teams of 3-5. 
2. The students come up with their own topic with teacher facilitation. Start at a high level and let the students own it in the details.
3. Teams define a plan and divvy up tasks to team members.
4. Students write a storyline script. To use different team members, there may be different characters or voices.
5. Students find images, take photos or draw pictures to visualize their script.
6. Students arrange the images on the 30hands mobile desktop in a way to invent a story.
7. Students record audio narration on the slides, following the script. 
8. Students preview the story/presentation and critique it.
9. Students revise the story bt rearranging slides, re-recording audio, adding and deleting slides.
10. Again, students preview the story.
11. One more time, students revise the story.
12. Now, the story should be ready to publish. Click the Publish button to create the final video.

• Depending on your goals and how detailed you want the presentation to be, this activity can be done during a single class or over multiple weeks.
• Help the students learn to work in teams. Coach them, discuss problems that arise in teams, talk about what makes a great team and give them ideas on how to overcome obstacles such as teammates who are not helping. 

An Idea for Creating Teams
One technique could be to have students spend 10 minutes writing down ideas on their own of something they are interested in or passionate about that helps others. By the end of the 10 minutes, they should each make a list and narrow it down to a single idea. Next, the teacher can write all the student ideas on the board and have the class vote on them. The first time, students get 3 votes. The ideas with the fewest votes get crossed off the list. Then, each student gets 2 votes, and the list gets whittled down further. The final vote is to group the students into teams. Be sure to keep enough ideas on the board, so there are not too many students on a single team. If one idea has too many students, you can break the list of students into two teams.

How to Get the 30hands Storyteller Video into a 30hands Course
If you publish your video to 30hands, you will be able to put it into a course. Follow these steps:

1. First, go to the 30hands Storyteller presentation on the web.
2. Click the "Download Original" link on the presentation and copy the URL. You can also right click with the mouse to copy the URL on a PC or Mac.
3. Next, create a Page in your course.
4. On the Rich Text field of the Page, click the Filmstrip icon and paste the URL that you just copied. Click OK.
5. This will put an "iframe" into the body of the Rich Text field. The "iframe" will change to an embedded video after saving the page.
6. If you want to type text before or after the video on the page, you can easily do that by putting a carriage return before or after the "iframe".
7. When done, save the page by clicking the button at the bottom.
8. Click "View Page" to see the embedded video.

The screen capture below shows how the filmstrip icon works.


Note: 30hands Storyteller videos are public unless you edit the video presentation to set privacy levels. Privacy can be set for an individual or a group. To give access to everyone in a course, create a group and put all course members into the group.