Puppet Pals

Puppet Pals is an application where users can design puppet shows. There are multiple sets of characters that the user can buy and download for use in the puppet show. The show that the user creates can contain multiple sets of characters. Each set of characters comes with three different backdrops that can be used for the show. After the user selects the characters and settings they can record the show while moving around the characters and changing the backdrop. This application allows for voice recording as the show is being played out. After the recording is finished the user can title their show and then play it back and share it.

Within the application users can do a lot of editing and moving of their characters, They can make their characters bigger or smaller or they can move them to the foreground and background of a scene. This is a feature that a live puppet show could not have. Users can make different statements based on the size of their characters. Throughout the play the characters could grow or shrink, depending on what is happening.

This application would be great for students to create their own puppet shows. It will allow them to be creative and come up with a new story. Teachers can have groups of students write a script and then have them create it using the Puppet Pal application. The teacher can also allow students to improvise as they make their own show. It is a great tool to use when talking about story element. Students could create a play and identify the different story elements.

Puppet Pal can also help students with inflection. When creating the show the students can learn about they way the characters talk and how that influences the story. Students can give the characters different voices and attitudes that play in to the story line. This will help students see that inflection is important in story telling. Without inflection the story is much more dry and boring, and with using Puppet Pal students can compare stories using good inflection and not using good inflection.

I would use Puppet Pal in my future classroom. I think that it gives students a creative way of making up stories. It gives them a baseline by providing sets of characters for them, but after that students get to make everything else up. I think it will help students in their story writing and in the way that they present the stories that they write.