Book Creator
Book Creator is exactly what it sounds like, a way for students to create multimedia books in order to share their learning or creations. The students can either share a narrative story of their own, or find a creative way to share what they've learned about a topic they investigated. I found it relatively easy to use, and students will have no problem intuitively adding text, pictures, colors, and even their own recordings.
Here are some resources that will help you and your students
- How to Create Book Creator in Chrome (Made in Book Creator!)
- Book Creator Support
- Book Creator YouTube Support Playlist
PowToon
I often refer to PowToon as a"slideshow on steroids". It is a great way for the students to unleash their creativity while informing their audience of what they want to share. Students can easily create animated slideshows with a variety of characters and backgrounds.
PowToon has a free and a paid version, with the paid version offering more "bells and whistles" but the free version being more than enough for students to have fun and get their message delivered.
Here are some resources to help you get started with PowToon
Possibly one of the most exciting new tools that I've seen recently is Adobe Spark. Spark has three major components, Post, Page and Video.
Adobe has made the incredible move (beginning April, 2018) of making all of it's premium services free for students and educators, (and making the service COPPA compliant even for students under 13 ), using Adobe Spark is a no-brainer. It's the trifecta of being a quality product that is intuitive AND free!
There are a million ways students can use this tool. Everything from digital storytelling, to creating a meme that summarizes or persuades, or even a dynamic webpage. I have just begun to use Spark, and it's already one of my favorite tools.
Even though the program is relatively intuitive, here is are a brief video that shows how to make a page, video, and post. It's fun!
In its simplest form, digital storytelling is using a combination of pictures, sounds, and words (written and spoken) to tell a story. Most people think of digital storytelling as a way for student to tell their own narrative story in a in a video form. And in reality, that's probably the most powerful form of digital storytelling. However, digital storytelling can also be used to tell explain, or to share an opinion about any topic a student is learning in school, and the projects can be incredibly powerful.
Digital Storytelling can be used to tell a personal story, to cause action, or to inform others about a topic. If you'd like to know more about digital storytelling, I went into more detail in my previous Digital Storytelling post.
Adobe has made the incredible move (beginning April, 2018) of making all of it's premium services free for students and educators, (and making the service COPPA compliant even for students under 13 ), using Adobe Spark is a no-brainer. It's the trifecta of being a quality product that is intuitive AND free!
There are a million ways students can use this tool. Everything from digital storytelling, to creating a meme that summarizes or persuades, or even a dynamic webpage. I have just begun to use Spark, and it's already one of my favorite tools.
Even though the program is relatively intuitive, here is are a brief video that shows how to make a page, video, and post. It's fun!
Podcasting
Podcasts have been very popular for a while now, and even having students listen to some commercially produced ones can be a useful way to have them understand different concepts.
In addition to that, students can create their own podcasts. They can "interview: characters in books or historical figures, reenact scenes, or record narrative stories or poems.
There are many tools you can use to have the students podcast. Probably the most simple is Garage Band, if you have Apple computers. Otherwise, some of the apps that seem to work best for Chromebooks are Twisted Wave, and Beautiful Audio Editor.
Digital Storytelling
Digital Storytelling can be used to tell a personal story, to cause action, or to inform others about a topic. If you'd like to know more about digital storytelling, I went into more detail in my previous Digital Storytelling post.
Other Options
There are many other ideas for students to use to show their learning, so if you're looking for other options for creating, take a look at these posts:
One caveat for any of the tools you might be interested in using- it is important to check the terms of service/COPPA compliance before using a new tool. Once you've found one that you like, it's a good idea to double check with your tech department of your school! (The ones listed on this post, are all approved for K-8 students)
