Why did you create this innovation?

The main objective of Historias para armar (HPA) is to offer accessible and free resources to encourage the creation of stories with digital media by children in order to promote:
-The development of 21st century skills.
-Inclusion and reduction of the digital divide.
-Creative uses of technology.
-Literacy in a comprehensive sense: reading, writing and the acquisition of digital languages.

How does your innovation work in practice?

Historias para armar promotes the creation of stories with digital media as an accessible and playful strategy for the development of 21st century skills and digital literacy through strategies that promote a learning by doing approach to technology.

HPA offers an interactive digital platform that invites children from 8 to 11 years old to devise and write their own stories, and provides them with prompts, tools and proposals to expand them in digital formats: films, animations, sound stories, comics or video games. In this way the project combines storytelling and media meaningfully through simple and innovative proposals designed from a gender, diversity and children’s rights perspective.

The initiative also offers a series of resources for educators and families: content related to new pedagogies, storytelling, meaningful use of media, skills and digital culture; didactic resources that tie the stories in with curricular content.

How has it been spreading?

HPA was created by Disney and Chicos.net as a multiplatform initiative to ensure wider access, including communities with less access to technology: content is distributed offline and online through the website, Youtube, television, government platforms, pdf worksheets.
To increase the impact and reach, partnerships were made with 24 leading organizations across Latin America and Ministries of Education.
To date, this is the scope in numbers:
- 160,000 unique website users.
- More than 560,000 children.
- More than 20,000 teachers.
- More than 80,000 stories created on the platform.
This year, we are offering and transfering contents and training courses to partners in order to ensure expansion, scalability and sustainability. We will continue these efforts for the next two years.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

The initiative has different possibilities:
-FOR CHILDREN:
EXPLORAR: mini-series that introduces the art of digital storytelling.
CREAR: An interactive experience that supports the writing process.
CONTAR: Tutorials to produce stories using digital languages.
-FOR TEACHERS/PARENTS: didactic resources and activity cards.
The initiative also offers free training courses to NGOs and governments.