What it is: Do you remember Google’s advertisement at the 2010 Superbowl? It was called Google Search Stories and showed a story of Parsian Love through a series of Google searches. Brilliant. Now you and your students can create your very own Google Search story with Google Search Stories Video Creator. There are three steps to creating your own Google Story: 1. Write the story, 2. Add Music, 3. Preview and Upload. As you write your story, you can choose to search by web, blog, images, maps, news, product search, and books.
How to integrate Google Search Stories Video Creator into the classroom: Google Search story is an innovative way for students to display understanding or tell a story. This tool teaches students to get to the heart of the story and tell it in a new, creative way. Students can demonstrate their understanding of history, current events, a book that they have read, or a math sequence.
First, students come up with 7 events to search, paying close attention to story structure. They should consider mixing web, images, maps, and blogs. This will make the story more interesting. Next, students choose music to fit the theme of their story. It can be comedic, dramatic, romantic, country, horror, family, or sci-fi. Finally, students can preview their story and share it with the world.
Think about sharing the life of a historical figure, or the story of Romeo and Juliet, or the scientific method in an experiment, or the story of their digital footprint, or a fictional story that the student created. Instead of writing out a traditional outline for a story, why not turn it into a Google Story? The possibilities of this tool are nearly endless! If you are introducing new information or learning to your class, consider doing it through a Google Story. Watch the story as a class and find out what your students already know, what they need to learn, and what they want to know. You could also create a Google Story as a class after new learning. As you teach, ask students to jot down thoughts about what they could add to their search story to sum up the learning. This will keep students engaged and thinking critically about the new material. After the video has been completed, students can access it from home as an outline of what they learned in class.
Tips: Check out the Tips offered for starting a story, these tips will give you, and your students, a great jumping off point.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google Search Stories in your classroom.
Can you publish the linked video to Teacher Tube as well? We have youtube blocked for content.
Thanks for the consideration!
Mike
I’m not sure if you can publish the linked video on Teacher Tube, you will have to check with YouTube and Google on that one!
I love the idea of having students track their searches, great idea Judith!
Hi Mike, I’m not the one to talk to about publishing the videos to Teacher Tube…we’ll have to find out if Google and YouTube would go for that.
Hi, I’m new to the site, but I’ve found at least 20 resources that I plan to use in my classroom. I’m a brand-new teacher, and this blog is a really awesome learning tool.
I made my own “teaching story” with Google stories, and I think that my students will like this a lot.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you April! I am so glad you are finding resources and ideas that you can use. Good luck on your first year teaching, please don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything. There are teachers everywhere ready to help and support you!
Hello! I work with students learning Russian and I’d love to use this as a way of helping them get comfortable searching the web in Russian. I use Cyrillic in google.com and google.ru all the time, but it seems it’s not possible to enter search terms for the stories in Russian. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for your thoughts and advice!
I was trying to use Google Stories, but after attempting to do this, I found on the Google forum that this feature has been “retired.” Is there a new way to do something similar that you’re aware of? See the link below for the explanation of why it is no longer available.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/photos/8ajHJu7ktz0
Lindsey, sadly this is one of those sites that Google axed 🙁 I’m so sad about it because it was such an incredibly cool tool!