Powtoon Potential

Are you looking for presentation options for you or your students that go beyond the Google Slides presentation? If so, PowToon might be of interest to you. With this tool, you and/or your students can create animated video presentations to share a message and grab attention. Using audio/video rather than standard presentation tools moves students away from over-reliance on text to convey ideas leading to a more engaging experience for the audience. They provide templates to speed up the design or you can start from scratch.

Example uses:

Instructional Videos (Flip your Classroom)

Demonstrate understanding of a topic. Biology Example.

   -show math processes, explanations of complex concepts, review new learning

Summarize main idea. Drama Example.

Commercial (have to know it to sell it): Book, Product, Idea

Storytelling: Informational or Creative Writing
Reflect on learning -Example: Where I was, Where I am, Where I'm going...

Present research findings

I'm sure you have more!

An elementary teacher from Virginia said of her experience with PowToon:

 "Getting my students to write has always been a struggle, especially at such a young age. After implementing PowToon into my instruction, my students now enjoy writing and beg to write and create stories. They enjoy writing because they are able to see the results of their final product. PowToon has truly made a huge impact in my classroom."

PowToon has a free version, but right now PowToon is giving way Classroom Basic plans (usually $96/year). You get 60 student accounts through this plan. Interested? Claim yours for free here!

Reach out to a building technology lead or Jody Kelley if you would like to kick around ideas or if you would like some assistance with implementing and using PowToon.

From Power Up: Making the Shift to 1:1 Teaching and Learning by Diana Neebe and Jen Roberts, "...many assignments and projects involving 1:1 technology take a little longer than their paper counterparts. Often this is because students are doing more work to complete higher-quality products. The difference in the outcome seems worth an extra couple of days" (p. 33). 

Are you already using PowToon? Please comment with an example or a description of how you/your students are using it!