Collaboration and Teamwork
My partner, Yihan, and I began by discussing our interests and brainstorming potential story themes. Our ideas originated from a desire to have a hamburger for lunch. Then, questions about where and how the origin of hamburgers popped up in our minds. We found a website introducing a fascinating history of hamburgers, so we decided to share it with everyone by creating this storybook. Once we settled on the idea of a time-traveling character exploring the history of burgers, we divided our tasks based on our interests. I am good at imagination, so I focused more on the storyline and character development, such as creating Angus Chronos and the Hamburglar. On the other hand, my partner likes traveling and trying local food, so she came up with a fantastic idea that talked about how a hamburger reflects different cultures. She also created an activity on cultural integration in a hamburger, which makes readers feel engaged and interactive.
From this collaboration, I learned the importance of open communication, compromise, and respecting each other’s ideas. We had different visions for certain scenes, but we overcame this challenge by discussing our reasons and trying out both versions before choosing the best one. This experience reminded me that teamwork is not only about dividing tasks evenly but also about supporting each other toward a shared goal.
Use of Digital Tools and Storytelling Techniques
Digital tools played an important role in our creative process. After searching online for information about historical events and different cultures, we wrote a narrative version of the story. Then, we used ChatGPT to help us stay organized by structuring the outline, dividing the story into stages based on the story mountain, and ensuring the word choice is suitable for our target readers. Moreover, ChatGPT was utilized to create beautiful pictures that fit the time-traveling theme of our storybook. Finally, Book Creator allowed us to compile everything in a way that felt like a real storybook. According to my classmate, Cherng, this storybook can also be published on iBooks, which is an e-book reading and store application by Apple Inc. In this way, we can share our storybook worldwide!
However, we encountered some technical problems. From my experience, asking AI to generate pictures was more difficult than just drawing by myself. If the prompts were not detailed enough, ChatGPT would give me weird images. After training ChatGPT a thousand times, we met the deadline and finally got what we wanted. That was a close call… In addition, it was not easy to align our text styles and the layout across pages. To solve this problem, we tried different styles and layouts to see which one presented the most clarity. After that, we reached an agreement and created a style guide on the Line chat for each other to follow.
After solving these problems and completing our storybook, there are several creative elements we feel proud of. One of the creative elements I’m most proud of is the balance between humor, history, culture, and education in our story. The character of Angus Chronos brought an adventurous and funny tone, while the burger timeline allowed us to incorporate historical and cultural facts in a lighthearted way.
Another element I feel proud of is the names of our storybook and the main character. The idea for the storybook's name, Bun-believable!, came from a catchphrase of a Taiwanese YouTuber. Every time he eats something delicious, he will say, “Unbelievable!” Besides, we decided to call the time traveler “Angus Chronos” because Angus is a type of beef, and Chronos is a Greek god of time.
The other element I like is the use of multimedia. We found TTS Maker useful for generating speech from text. It’s difficult to do the voice-over by ourselves because there are a lot of male characters in our storybook. What’s more, the background music (McDonald’s) and the embedded video (the Hamburglar) made our storybook more interesting. Overall, creating this storybook let me feel a sense of achievement. When we presented our storybook, I saw everyone was completely lost in the story!
Personal Growth and Takeaways
For me, receiving peer feedback was the most meaningful part because it helped us make our storybook better. In the first peer discussion, we shared our storyboard with Rosa and Archita, heard their storyline, and gave each other feedback. What I learned from their story was that they shortened the narrator’s lines so the readers could easily follow the text. In the second peer discussion, we showed our storybook on Book Creator to Eunice and Howard, listened to their story, and received each other’s feedback. They mentioned that the beginning of our story was too long, which might be somewhat boring and lose readers’ interest. Keeping their suggestions in mind, I deleted some unimportant parts and ensured the story was concise but informative. Besides, I was also inspired by Vernelle and Jordi. They shared the tips on how they recorded the sound, which included the background music and their voices together. After Vernelle and Jordi’s sharing, we brainstormed some background music that could grab readers’ attention and uploaded it to our storybook. After presenting our storybook, we also received some suggestions, such as adding the page numbers and the section titles. Based on the advice, we adjusted our storybook and shared it with our friends, bringing joy to our readers. Therefore, receiving peer feedback helped us improve the quality of the storybook.
Although I perceive peer feedback was the most meaningful part, overall, I enjoyed every step of developing the storybook: writing the plot, imagining creative twists, receiving peer feedback, and finally presenting the story. It was especially fulfilling to see how our idea evolved into an interesting and engaging storybook.
As a future English teacher, this project has influenced my thinking by showing me how powerful storytelling can be in the classroom. From writing the plot to finally presenting the story, students can not only enhance their English skills but also raise audience recognition. Furthermore, exploring the use of digital tools can cultivate students’ digital literacy, which is crucial in this AI era. I also see the potential of technology to enhance students’ motivation in the learning process by helping them brainstorm and inspiring their creativity. In the future, I would like to explore different kinds of technology tools and materials to innovate my English teaching.