Free App Friday: StoryCorps

Back in March of 2015, StoryCorps was the winner of the annual $1 million TED prize. The company, founded in 2003 by Dave Isay, invested the prize money into the development a mobile app for iOS and Android. StoryCorps allows people to record interviews and upload them automatically to the StoryCorps website and the Library of Congress for safekeeping. Over the past twelve years, literally hundreds of thousands of interviews have been recorded and archived in Washington, D.C. at the American Folklife Center. The development of the mobile app now allows students and teachers to participate in StoryCorps global oral history project and contribute to their mission of collecting and sharing the human experience.

We recently tested the StoryCorps iOS app and it is fantastic. Highly intuitive, with easy to follow tips on each screen, the app walks the user through setting up and recording an interview in a few simple steps. Interview questions can be customized, or you can select questions from the StoryCorps question bank which includes the following categories:

The Great Listen
Best Questions
Warm-up
Parents
Grandparents
Family Heritage
Growing Up & School
Love & Relationships
Working
Military
Religion & Spiritual
Remembrance
Serious illness

Once you have selected or created your interview questions, Storycorps recommends 5 to 10 questions, you can indicate the name of the person you are interviewing as well as the length of the interview. Interviews can range between 15, 30, or 45 minutes. Most StoryCorps interviews are 45 minutes. The screenshots below provide you with an inside look at this excellent app and we highly recommend it for students and teachers, especially English, History, Social Studies, and Foreign Language. We will be taking StoryCorps for a test drive next week and will be sharing the completed interview!

Open the app and tap the plus sign in the upper right to start a new interview