Use Storify To Tell Your Story and Document the Social Web

Storify-header Storify is a new platform that allows users to quickly tell a story using material from the social web. Yesterday I received an invitation to try out their beta.

Just as I began exploring it, my Twitter feed alerted me to the tragic events in Japan. Without much planning, I began using Storify to collect material about the earthquake / tsunami from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr  and other news feeds.

While I kept my narrative to just a few sentences, users can add additional comments to each element. My finished story appeared on the Storify site and I used the embed code to also post it on my blog

As an advocate of document based instruction, I realized that Storify has great potential in the classroom. It's a easy tool for teachers and students to gather a variety of social media and web content. It would be especially useful way for students to critically evaluate web and social media content.  As a historian I also think if it as a first, rough draft of history – a social document for future generations.

~ I regret that my first use of Storify was to document such a tragic event. My prayers go out to all those impacted by the earthquake and tsunami. I hope to be able to tell happier stories in the future.  

Storify Overview from Storify on Vimeo.

 

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.