This spring, a team of over 40 people has joined together to create AceStories, the first collection of online “talking” stories of its kind.
These stories, mostly featuring the Warhawk mascot Ace, are created in efforts to promote a love of reading for children approximately five to 10 years of age.
The hopes are that students and other volunteers on campus will be able to encourage children to enjoy reading at an early age by generating free and readily available resources online.
The process of creating these stories includes authoring, editing, illustrating, narrating, producing and coding.
The authors of the stories are students at ULM, while art majors created the illustrations to go along with the story.
Authors compose stories of about 15 sentences in length, which then go through an editing process where the stories are revised.
Once a story is approved, illustrators sketch images to incorporate into the stories.
Narrators read the stories aloud for recording, and then audio editors cut the recording into individual sentences.
Coders prepare the HTML needed to produce the final collaborated piece for the online website.
Michael Beutner, associate professor and coordinator in the Teaching and Learning Resource Center (TLRC), is the driving force behind AceStories.
“Children in schools in Louisiana tend to score very poorly in tests of achievement in literary arts, primarily because they have not learned how to love to read,” Beutner said.
“We think free and engaging educational resources created by students here at ULM will encourage this love,” Beutner said.
The technology used to create AceStories is open-source, meaning that it is free to use.
Beutner hopes that leaving the technology available to others will encourage a wild fire of new education techniques that can reach children and allow them to enjoy reading wherever they may be.
Experience AceStories at www.ulm.edu/ace.
