App overview
The Storypark for Educators Android app is a companion to the website, and makes it easier and faster to do the things you do most frequently. It helps educators to:
Create and share posts with your community using images, videos and attachments
Have conversations directly with your team
Document children’s learning using images, video and text
Save and access draft, pending and published stories - so you can work from anywhere
Keep your work safe with offline support
Instantly share updates with a child's family including routines
Receive and respond to comments and feedback
Quickly see the latest activity, so you can stay on top of new content, responses and communication.
Please note, some features are not available on the app at the moment. For example management tasks like adding new children and inviting users. You can still access these features on your mobile device by logging into the Storypark website in your device’s browser (e.g. Chrome, Firefox etc.)
App guide
This guide is ordered by the tabs running horizontal at the bottom of the app:
See how to:
Children - view child profiles and their associated stories, moments, plans and notes
Community - view and create community posts and conversations
Create - make new stories, child notes, conversations, routines and community posts
Activity - view updates across your service
Me - check draft and pending stories, edit your profile and switch services
Children: See children and view their stories, moments, plans and notes
The Children section shows all the children in your current centre and their stories, moments, plans and notes.
Selecting All children will show you all the children’s stories. Tapping on a specific child's name will show you all their stories.
If your centre has different rooms, you can switch between viewing the whole centre and any rooms by tapping on the centre or room name. This filters the children shown in the list.
Viewing, editing and deleting stories
Tap on a story tile to view the full story. You can edit or delete it by tapping on the … icon in the top right:
Responding to stories
To respond or comment on a published story, tap Leave a response… at the bottom of the screen. You can add images or videos from your photo library to your response by tapping on the camera icon. To take a photo, first open an album then select the camera.
In the responses section at the end of a story, you’ll see a count of views, loves and comments on a story. Tapping on the eye and heart icons will show you a list of who has viewed or loved it.
View plans, moments and child notes
Using the menu at the top of the app, you can also view plans and child notes at your current centre or on a specific child's profile:
To view family moments - select the stories tab - then select Family moments from the drop-down menu:
Community: Your communities and conversations
The Community section shows your communities (for your centre and rooms) and existing conversations that you are a participant in.
Any centre or room with new community posts will move to the top, and be shown in bold text. Community channels are marked with a small yellow house icon:
Tap on any community to see previous community posts, ordered by recent activity.
Tap Continue reading... to see the full post, along with any images, attachments and responses.
Create: Creating new stories, community posts and conversations
(We have a seperate help article for logging daily routines, including from the create button).
You can add new learning stories and observations from the create button:
Adding text, images, videos and learning tags to your story
The toolbar at the bottom of the story editor lets you switch between the types of content you can add:
Toolbar, left to right:
Text tool
Images (select from recent images/videos, or take new photos/videos)
Learning tags
Background colour selector
View all photo albums (shown when image tool is selected)
To add images or video, select from the recent images shown, open the camera from the top of the images panel, or access all of your images from the Album icon (shown when the image tool is selected). Choose as many images as you like, and they’ll be added in the order selected. By default the images will be laid out side by side. If selecting an odd number, the first image will be larger.
Reorder your story content
Tap and hold on an image or text block to reposition it. A blue line will indicate where it will be placed. Position images side by side by dragging one image to the left or right of another one, or drag one above the other to make it bigger.
Saving, publishing or sending for approval
Your drafts will always be saved by default when you close your story. Depending on whether your stories can be published, need to be approved, or you’re approving someone else’s story, the top right action will Publish, Submit or Approve and publish the story.
Offline support
If you lose your internet connection while working on a story, your draft will be saved on the device so work won’t be lost. Once you’re back online and in the app, it’ll save and sync, and you’ll then see it on any other devices. Note that if you edit an older version of the story on the web, before the version from the app has synced, it may be overwritten when your phone or iPad reconnects.
Create a new community post
Add new community posts from the Create/plus button:
To make your post an urgent announcement, click the three dots to the right of your post and select Notification settings:
Then select Post as urgent announcement.
Note: This feature may override parent's notification settings, and is intended for critical information only. For example, unexpected centre closures.
Start a new conversation
Add new conversations from the Create/plus button:
You can start a new conversation with other educators and/or family members by tapping the people icon. New conversations will then appear in your list on the left-hand side.
Note: If no family is listed, it may be that parent-teacher conversations are turned off at your service.
Activity: Stay up to date with the latest activity
The activity section includes updates about stories, community posts, conversations, planning, child notes, family moments, responses and invitations that relate to you. Tap on an update to view the full details.
Currently, this does not include updates about your educator portfolio, so this needs to be accessed through the website. Pull down on the activity feed to refresh and see new updates.
Me: Drafts, pending, your profile and switching between services and get help
Draft stories
This is where you’ll find your drafts - created either from the website or the app:
The draft stories folder is split into My drafts and Shared with me. Any draft story you've written or those where you've had the editorship transferred to you is under My drafts. Any drafts that you've been given view access to will appear under Shared with me.
Note: Once any draft story is published, it will disappear from its respective tab.
Shared draft stories can be filtered by the author's name from the drop-down menu:
Collaborate: Share a draft story
Educators can share their drafts with anyone else connected as an educator to their centre. Sharing a draft gives the recipient view-only access.
Sharing a draft
Create and save a new draft or access an existing one from your Draft stories folder. From the story's preview, tap the three dots ... button at the bottom right-hand corner:
Select share draft from the drop-down menu and select one, multiple or all educators to share view access with by tapping on their names. For services with a lot of educators, use the search bar to narrow down the selection. Individual educators can be selected and deselected by clicking on their names:
Press the Done button to confirm the selection, this will automatically send an email and in-app notification to the selected viewers. They'll now be able to view the draft story under their Shared with me tab.
Unsharing a draft
Find the existing draft in the Draft stories tab. From the story's preview, tap the three dots ... button at the bottom right-hand corner:
Select share draft from the drop-down menu and deselect one, multiple or all educators by tapping on their name to unshare view access with. For services with a lot of educators, use the search bar (under the magnifying glass icon) to narrow down the selection. Individual educators can be deselected by clicking on their names or use Clear all to remove everyone at once.
Press the Done button, this will automatically send an email and in-app notification to the deselected viewers to let them know they can no longer view the draft.
Collaborate: Change the editor of a draft story
Note: This feature is coming soon
Educators can transfer editorship of a draft with anyone else connected as an educator to their centre. Transferring editorship of a draft changes the story's author and passes over access to another educator to edit, delete, share and/or publish the story.
There is no limit to the number of times editorship of a draft story can be transferred - this means it can be used to:
reflect multiple perspectives of educators within one story
pool knowledge of a child's learning and development, evolving stories as a teaching team
pass stories by part-time staff or those going on leave onto others for completion in their absence
provide mentoring among peers or across teams
Changing editorship of a draft
Create and save a new draft or access an existing one from your Draft stories folder. From the story's preview, tap the three dots ... button at the bottom right-hand corner:
Select Change editor from the drop-down menu to choose a new editor for the draft - note, only one educator can be selected. For services with a lot of educators, use the search bar (under the magnifying glass icon) to narrow down the selection. Individual educators can be selected and deselected by clicking on their names:
Press the Done button to confirm the selection, this will trigger a pop-up warning to confirm the choice to transfer editorship of the draft (as it means loss of edit access).
Once confirmed, the new editor will be automatically sent an email and in-app notification advising the change of editorship. They'll now be able to view, edit, publish and/or delete the draft story. The draft story will appear under the My drafts tab on their end.
The educator who has passed on the editorship of the draft story will automatically have view-only access to the draft story. Note: The new editor can remove their access if they wish.
Pending stories
If you are under story approval or set up as an approver for other educators, you'll find pending stories here.
Switch services
If you belong to multiple services or centres with one account under the same email address, you can switch between them.
To change what service you are viewing, tap on the Me tab then from the left-hand menu tap on the Switch services button. This will provide you with options to select the service you would like to view.
Get help
Access the help centre from within the app, or tap Ask us a question to get in touch with the Storypark customer support team.