Inanimate Alice

In my educational technology courses for teachers, we discuss digital literacy and transmedia storytelling. Inanimate Alice is THE example I give my teachers of how storytelling can connect with media, learners, and communities. I have yet to find another educational tool that compares to the extensive stories, videos, and curriculum in Inanimate Alice.

I think what makes Alice so special is the strong narrative that allows for deep reading, conversations that move into critical reading, prediction, a shared experience between readers who are anticipating what might happen next and then designing and writing their own 'next' episode.

I love the visual presentation and engaging activities that keep my Deaf students and reluctant readers so engrossed that they forget it is learning!!

My students have been so highly engaged and can’t wait to do more! They even wanted to know if they could do it at home, and that is unheard of in our school community!

I have been a massive fan of Inanimate Alice for almost 6 years now. It is the only resource that has travelled with me from Grade 6 to 7 to 8 and currently in Grade 2. A fantastic teaching tool.

I love how the language is so supported by the graphics that even beginner English language learners can understand it!

I’ve been using ‘Inanimate Alice’ in classes for some years now, with classes of all ages and abilities. Engagement with Alice’s story is impressive and students are desperate to find out what happens next. Their creativity is tested to the full and they are challenged to use skills and strategies which they may never have used in English – animation and audio-visual tools, for a start. Working on ‘Alice’ allowed classes to collaborate in a way which made me, the teacher, superfluous. And their final product was often breathtakingly good. What more could we ask for as teachers?

I just started the program with my 7th graders yesterday and they are hooked! Today they have all asked if we could work on it; not something you usually hear from 7th graders. After viewing the Alice stories and discussing what makes a good digital story, the students will be creating a digital story about our town – Lakewood, Ohio – in whichever literary genre they prefer. I am finding your teacher resource material helpful and focused.

I am a Library Media Specialist and just wanted to let you know that I am using your site in a presentation I am doing at the Digital Literacy Institute at the University of Rhode Island on July 14-18 in Providence, Rhode Island. I am speaking about the teaching I have done with Inanimate Alice and the multitude of ways it engages students and stimulates learning. I have had such fun and success using Alice’s story in the classroom, and I hope to encourage many others to get involved with it as well. Thank you for creating such a wonderfully innovative form of storytelling and for the education support materials that are so helpful!

My 2 reading classes and I are so hooked on Inanimate Alice. Is there an episode 5... will there be more episodes to come? This is just a wonderful and innovative way to get students engaged and into reading and understanding multimedia elements and how they add to the beauty of the text. This has been a lifesaver for the end of the school year when it’s easy to lose the kids’ attention. I have begun making smartboard lessons to go along with each episode... suggested vocabulary. I’ll e-mail them to you when I think they’re good enough.

I have used the series as an end-of-the-year activity for the past two years. I have created literacy questions for episodes 1-3. I have students watch episode 4, and then answer two short essay type questions. As a final activity, I have students write and produce their own episode 5. It is a perfect activity to complete our year. Students are very engaged while working on the activities. The grade level is 7th.” The following year... “And yes, once again, Alice is providing a quality ending to my 7th grade students’ reading curriculum. Love Alice – perfect end of the year work: focused and fun!

My class at Wakefield has been using Inanimate Alice the past few weeks and I think it was probably us that spiked the usage for the loop. 🙂 I have 38 year 5/6 students in my literacy group and they are so into Inanimate Alice. I decided to use it in my programme to try to engage the students that ‘don’t like reading’ but they can’t get enough of it now, both online and reading the text only version. The story line offers many options when it comes to guided reading or follow up activities. Some of the reluctant readers have shown a real change in attitude towards reading which has been a great start to the year!

21st century schools must keep up with technology, engage students and create life-long learners. Inanimate Alice does it all. Inanimate Alice is a wonderful combination of audio and visual text features which lures in reluctant readers and leaves them wanting more. Thanks to Inanimate Alice, I was able to bridge the gap and take students from averse, to reading with enthusiasm, in a short period of time!

I wanted to let you know you all are doing a wonderful job! Teachers and students alike love Inanimate Alice, and it’s especially good to use with our reluctant readers.

I am so proud of the students’ work but even more so, they are so proud and empowered. That, I think, is the greatest reward!

I’m pretty passionate about the project, as I used it in a unit of teaching for the full registration process that graduate teachers have to go through. So, Inanimate Alice helped me get my full registration.

I want to praise @InanimateAlice for being THE best non-coding related educational tool I have ever used because of how it engages my students. Nothing quite like a character to lead them in.

I love teaching Inanimate Alice. I save it up for the end of the year because it is my favourite unit. I use it for an English unit called “Everyone’s a Writer”. It gives me an awesome platform to investigate different types of story-telling and writing techniques.

My name is Lexie, I am from Sydney, Australia and I studied Inanimate Alice in my first year of high school. Inanimate Alice was the first text I ever studied in high school and I found it extremely engaging and I had never seen anything like it. Thank you for making such a fun way to learn. Inanimate Alice is amazing and has made a difference in at least one student's life, and I'm sure for many more.

Inanimate Alice is a great digital program – we’ve been using it for our Year 6 classes for over 10 years now and the students love it. We listen to Episode 1, 2, and 3 and then the students research a country of their choice for Alice to live in and write a new narrative following the same structure as the other IA episodes. They make an episode of their own and share it with their peers. We use this as an assessment piece.