#31. Reinventing Reading: Using AI and Digital Tools to Create New Formats of Educational Storytelling


In today’s classrooms, educators face a growing challenge: Students, especially ESL and EFL learners, are reading less. For a growing number of students, traditional books struggle to compete with the fast-paced, visually stimulating world of digital media. Instead of lamenting this shift, I decided to embrace it—by using AI and digital tools to reimagine what reading material can be.


The Experiment: Turning a 'Text Story' into a 'Mini-Series'

For this project, I wanted to see how far I could push my own understanding of current AI and tech tools to create an engaging reading experience for my Grade 5 and 6 ESL students. The result? A five-part YouTube mini-series based on an original story, crafted with the help of Chat GPT, called "Birthday Boy." This faux-horror comedy follows the misadventures of the ever-ridiculous Ranterino character (whom my students have known and interacted with for many years) as he disastrously attempts to become a children’s birthday party clown.

Instead of presenting the story as a traditional text with some images, I used a range of AI and digital tools to try to bring it to life.* The use of these tools for this project can be broken down into these categories:

🔹 Story Writing & Editing – I wrote the first draft of story myself but then used ChatGPT to proofread and suggest improvements, particularly to assist with generating more rhyming and false-rhyming sequences in the text to help develop students' spelling and sound pattern recognition.

🔹 AI-Generated Visuals – Leonardoai helped create high-quality anime-style images and motion elements, with a pretty good ability to character reference images through scenes.

🔹 Video Design & Voiceovers – Canva and 11Labs provided dynamic text visuals and credible AI-generated narration.

🔹 Music & Sound Design – AI-generated music from Filmora Wondershare and Suno, plus tracks from Kevin McLeod’s Incompetech, set the perfect tone.

🔹 Final Production – Wondershare Filmora tied everything together, allowing seamless editing and enhancement.

A sneak preview... here's the trailer to give you a flavor:





The Outcome: A New Way to Engage Students in Reading

The result? A fully AI-assisted, professionally crafted video series that transforms the reading experience into a multimedia event. Instead of static text, students follow the story like a Netflix series—each short episode keeping them engaged while still requiring them to process language, narration, and plot. The series can be used with students as a speaking and writing prompt to use with story prediction activities, along with basic comprehension activities and other fun tasks such as ending re-writes, role play drama script writing etc. 

Why This Matters for ESL & EFL Learning

Rather than forcing students to read in a way that no longer aligns with their digital habits, this approach adapts storytelling to their reality. It blends literacy with multimedia comprehension, allowing them to engage with narratives in a format they actually enjoy. The text still plays a central role (via subtitles, narration, and storytelling elements), but now it’s supplemented by visuals and audio to enhance comprehension, motivation, and retention.

Final Thoughts: The Future of AI in Education

This project proved one thing: with zero artistic skills but strong AI and tech fluency, it’s now possible to create engaging, high-quality educational content for young learners. AI tools have lowered the barrier to professional-level storytelling, offering a glimpse into the future of how we might redefine literacy education.

So, instead of worrying that students aren’t reading books, why not reinvent the book itself?

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*It's important for educators who may be new to AI to understand that there is no big shiny button that you can just press and AI will do anything you have in your head. It takes a lot of human thought and practice to decide upon what AI tools will be most useful, and how to use them.

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