It's Cartoon Time

Narrative has always been a tool for teaching and distributing knowledge in diverse disciplinary fields. Storytelling and learning are inextricably intertwined because the process of composing a story is also a process of meaning-making. In the present century, digital storytelling has become a modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Besides Dvolver Moviemaker, today’s post will introduce readers with another tool of digital storytelling that can be used for teaching English. The web tool is called Zimmer Twins.

Link: http://www.zimmertwins.com/

General Description

Zimmer Twins is a web tool that allows users to create movies or animated stories through the animation clips provided. The users can either create their own endings to one of the story starters provided by the site or create their own stories from scratch. To get started, simply go to the website and create an account. Once it is done, click on the ‘make a movie’ and the users can now start to make a movie, be it a story ending or direct their own movie from zero. The website provides the users with many choices of talk bubble, action, close-up, and star for them to pick on and create their stories. Once the story is finished and saved, it can now be shared with others through emails. The nice thing about this website is that it provides features such as ‘watch a movie’ and ‘spotlight’ (features movies from VIP members) which allow the users to watch movies created by other members of Zimmer Twins. Moreover, Zimmer Twins enables its members to interact with each other by leaving comments and messages on each others’ pages. The following is an example of a movie from the story starter that I created by using the tool, click on this link for access. 

Level and Age

Zimmer Twins is suitable to be applied for students at all levels of English proficiency. This is because it provides an easy to use movie making skills and the content is up to the learners since they are the ones who need to establish the stories. Thus, it is applicable to both primary and secondary school students raging from the age of 10-17 years old. The adult learners may also use this tool to enhance their storytelling skills, but it may not be challenging for them, especially those advanced learners as it only allows for simple animation stories.

How To Use Zimmer Twins For Teaching English?

In my opinion, this tool can be used as follows:

1. Pre-writing: Teacher picks one of the story starters, and introduces students to some related vocabulary that can be used in the story. Then, teacher leads students with the brainstorming session, in which the teacher elicits some ideas that can be used for the story from the students.
2. Writing: In groups of four, students need to create the ending of the story. Teacher reminds students to use some of the new vocabulary learned and use some of the ideas that has been brainstormed to build the ending or they could even use their own ideas. 
3. Post-writing: Once the story is finished, teacher and students watch all the movies together and they can rate and vote for the winner. Then, teacher asks students to do peer evaluation on all stories that have been created by writing down their comments on each groups’ page.

Furthermore, teachers can hold a film festival in the class. Teachers instruct students to create a movie from scratch. This task is made as homework and they will be given a three days to complete the task. Hence, the students will have enough time to prepare and complete the task at their best. One the movies created. They will watch the movies in class, and vote for the winner. As a reward, presents will be given to the winners. Then, for the purpose of evaluating the movies created, teachers lead a discussion about the good and bad things students have done. In the process, teachers will suggest some ideas for students’ improvement in both writing skills and presentation skills.

Evaluation

Advantages:

1. It enhances students’ creativity because Zimmer Twins is all about creative storytelling. It allows students to give vent to their imaginative powers and exercise their storytelling skills. 
2. It creates an active learning environment. As the students struggling to make meaning, they are forced to retrieve information from memory rather than simply recognizing a correct statement. Besides, students are more likely to access their own prior knowledge. Hence, the learning will be meaningful to them as they are personally involved in the process of making meaning.
3. The animation is attractive and motivating. Hence, the students will be engaged with the activity and focus to the learning process. 
4. In addition, the tool can enhance students writing skills. Students will be involved in planning skills, building the content, and revising the content before produce the final product. Thus, they are able to practice all stages that involve in the process of writing.
5. Besides, this tool allows users to interact and share stories with other members and outsiders. This allows students to get lots of positive and negative feedback that will be useful for them to improve their storytelling skills which involve both writing skill and presentation skill.       
6. Zimmer Twins also appeals to the students’ different learning styles. By providing animations, students can associate vocabulary with the images, and this would be a huge benefit to those students who are ‘picture smart’. Besides, the ‘language smart’ students would be able to fully use their language ability to express meaning at their best.
7. If the activity is done in pairs or groups, students will be involved in collaborative learning. Collaboration leads to negotiation of meaning, communication, idea sharing, brain-storming, compromising, and synthesizing. 
8. This tool allows the movies to be saved in the users’ account. Hence, it gives teachers an opportunity to keep track on track on their students’ progress and necessary improvement can be made.

Disadvantages:

1. The characters in the animations cannot speak the lines. There are only background music and some special effect sound. 
2. The libraries of animation are pre-set and restricted. Students cannot add their own pictures from the internet or computer’s file.
3. Once the movie is saved, it can no longer be edited. Hence, if there is any error made or addition needs to be made, the only solution is to delete it and start making a new movie. 
4. If there is no observation from teachers or parents, students might use inappropriate language in the dialogues.