Introduction

Recap the work from the last few weeks. What are your top tips for typing?  What does the shift key do? How many hands should we use?

Revisit 2Type and let the students choose from the two typing games: Falling Letters and 2Pop. Alternatively, you could try out some web-based typing games. There are lots available if you search online for 'typing games for kids', but this article suggests nine nice options that are free.

What effects did we add to our multimedia spell books in our last lessons?

What sort of animations did you add to your book?

What does formatting your text mean?

What sound effects did you add? 

 

Interactive stories

In this final project we're are going to use the most advanced version of 2Create a Story in Purple Mash. The project will span the final two lessons of this unit (or as long as you need).

Go to Tools > 2Create a Story

 

 

And then select then choose the My Adventure Story mode. If you are still using the old 2Simple Collection, 2Create has similar features.

 

 

My Adventure Story gives you all the features of 2Create a Story that's we've already seen and used, but it also gives you the ability to add interactive elements, and make individual objects on the screen move, make sounds, and become buttons that do things, such as go to different pages or even other websites or pieces of work created with Purple Mash.

We're going to make a short story containing some interactive elements and choices for the reader.

 

Planning your story

Step one is to plan out your story. Our story is going to carry on the theme of magic and spells, but you can link it to any topic you like.

Here's our plan:

1. A kind wizard meets a frog that needs the wizard's help - he was a boy that has been turned into a frog by a witch.
2. The wizard sends him to look for three ingredients that he needs for a potion to turn him back into a boy.
3. The boys goes to find some magic beans, scraps of food and a special blue flower.
4. The wizard and the frog meet up, create the potion and turn the frog back into a boy.

 

Adding backgrounds

Let start by thinking about the pages we'll need and creating some backgrounds. We're going to create five pages, one for scene one, one for finding each of the three potion ingredients, and one for the final scene.

On each page, click on the add background button.

 

 

You can draw your own backgrounds, or choose from a collection of pre-made background images by clicking the clip art button on the background editing page. This will speed things up for your class.

 

 

As you select a background, most don't fit perfectly in the long, thin picture box. So you can drag the image up or down and use the zoom slider to choose which part of the image to use on your page. Other controls are labelled below.

 

 

As you click Ok to save each background, be sure to choose the option for Just this page (unless you want otherwise).

 

 

 

Repeat this for the other pages in your story. You can use the Planning button to see the layout of all your pages.

 

 

Ask the students to save their work at this point.

 

 

Adding sprites

Let's go back to page 1 and add the characters. We are not going to draw them straight onto the page this time. To allow us to animate them individually they need to be separate sprites (objects). In the My Adventure Story version of 2Create a Story we now have a button to add sprites.

 

 

You can draw your own or use the clip art that is provided.

 

 

Once you have drawn or picked a sprite, you can start to animate it. If you click the green question mark icons you can select the same animations for this object that we used in our last lesson for the pages. However, now we can have a bit more choice about how it happens. You can set the animation to begin when the page opens, or when the sprite is clicked by the reader. This can make your books really interactive!

You can also set how many times the animation is repeated and if you want to delay the animation. The final options allow you to make the object a button to make things happen... we'll come back to those later!

 

 

We're going to start by making our wizard walk to the right when the page opens. Then press Ok on both windows to add the sprite to your page.

 

 

Once your sprite is on your page you can drag it around to position it and also use the buttons around it for the following functions.

 

 

If anything goes wrong, you can easily undo or redo any action on your page.

 

 

To delete a sprite, click edit and then the bin icon.

 

 

Ask the students to save their work again at this point.

 

 

On our second page we've added the frog sprite and the blue flower sprite. Each is set to play an animation and sound when clicked. We've recorded a sound for the frog's voice. This can be a great way for some of your more reluctant or less able writers to still tell their story (if you have microphones available).  The flower is set to disappear when clicked and play a short sound. This will make the reader feel like they are collecting the flower for the frog.

 

 

To make it obvious to the reader that there are interactive elements on the page we've also added some prompt labels. You can find these arrows and other button templates in the links section.

 

 

If you leave the action as Do nothing, they can simply be labels on the page.

 

 

Pages 3 and 4 repeat this process.

 

 

Ask the students to save their work again at this point.

 

 

On our final page we have the wizard, the frog and the boy sprites (plus some other things just for decoration).

 

 

The frog is set to disappear on a delay of 1 second.

 

 

The boy sprite is set to grow on a delay of 2 seconds, so he appears as the frog disappears, and it appears like the spell has worked!

 

 

Ask the students to save their work again at this point.

 

 

Non-linear story paths

This feature is optional as it extends the learning and challenge of the project. You may wish to use it as a way to extend your more able students.

The My Adventure Story version also gives you the tools to create non-linear stories, so the reader can choose which route to take through the story. This can be achieved with buttons that are set as links to the different pages.

Let's add some to our story so the reader can choose which order in which to collect the three potion ingredients.

Go back to page 1 and click the links button.

 

 

Create a button that tells your reader where they will go next.

 

 

Then choose Go to page at the bottom of the window and select the page you want this button to link to.

 

 

Repeat this with buttons to the other possible pages.

 

 

Repeat this on the other pages where you want readers to have a choice. Each page about one of the potion ingredients has buttons to get to the other two ingredients, plus an option to go to the final page to see the wizard once they have collected all three.

 

 

The planner tool at the top of the page will show you all the links you have made to and from the different pages.

 

 

Ask the students to save their work again at this point.

 

 

When you are finished, hit the play button and enjoy each others stories! Like in the last project, you can share them more widely via the Share button.

 

 

You can find an interactive version of our finished story HERE.

 

 

 

Plenary

Review the lesson and the students' learning with the following questions:

Do you have text on your page?

What kind of formatting have you used on the text?

Do you have picture objects on your page?

Have you added animation to them?

What type of animation did you choose and why? 

Have you added buttons so the reader can choose their own route through the pages?