On Monday, we hosted 55 children from nearby schools at a ‘Digital Story Telling’ Day. We used the App, Epic Citadel, as the inspiration and were stunned by the quality of the writing. Using Epic Citadel was inspired by the work of Tim Rylands and ICT Mr P, although we did add a few twists of our own. Here is what we got up to:

TASK ONE – Explore The Citadel

• Use your iPad to explore the Epic Citadel​
• As you explore, use notes to write down words that describe the settlement and the feelings you experience as you wander the streets​
• We will meet every group and ask them for some of their words and use Padlet to create a visual display of them​

We then used our teacher iPads and Padlet to collate the words from the children, and project them onto the big screen.

TASK TWO – Create a Digital Word Cloud

• Use a selection of the words on display and the app, Tag Cloud, to create your very own digital Word Cloud that you can include in your digital book​
• When you have finished your tag cloud – make sure you save it to camera roll​

• Use Keynote to write your descriptive passage on Epic Citadel, use the words in your Word Clouds to fuel some amazing writing.

Task Four – Epic Comic

—Choose from one of these scenarios:

• • —You have just escaped from the dungeon
  • —You are the only survivor and are being chased by a killer dragon
  • —You need to find the princess who is imprisoned in the tallest tower
• —Take some screenshots from Epic Citadel that fit in with your scenario, adding them to your camera roll
• —Choose a template
• —Import the pictures into Strip Design
• —Add the text that tells your story using text balloons
• —Edit your text boxes appropriately
• —Save to camera roll

Task Five – Epic Puppet Pals

• —Imagine that you, your partner are either a dragon, witch, knight, princess or fairy godmother are in the Epic Citadel! What would you talk about?
• —Use Pages to constuct a 30 second dialogue between the characters you choose.
• —Start the Puppet Pal App
• —Select your two characters
• —You can choose between three parts of The Citadel, a castle, the dragon’s cave or the enchanted forest. Just pick TWO of them.
• —Act out the dialogue
• —Save your final scene to camera roll

Task Six – Create Your Own Digital Book

• —Use Book Creator to put your work together
• Add narration where appropriate

 Reflections

It proved to be a great day and some of the writing was extraordinary! There are all sorts of extensions you could add to your book, such as a Morfo to bring alive a Medieval character or even use a green screen to put the children into the Epic Citadel itself!