Here is my first attempt at a PowToon video. It wasn't too difficult to make; it just takes a while to get used to the controls and putting things in the right place on the slide (you have to pay attention to the time bar at the bottom for everything). This site is fun because it has little cartoon people that have different expressions and body language, and some are animated. It has several options for adding text and images, which is useful. They have templates you can start with, but I thought it was harder editing their templates than starting from scratch, so I used a blank one to start my video. It also has music to choose from for some ambience. The hardest thing was really deciding on the content I wanted to include, and then getting my video into a share-able format when I finished. PowToon gave me an embed code, but it didn't work, so I exported it to YouTube instead, and used their embed code to share it here. There isn't a download option, so you can only save your videos online. This video format is awesome for expressing ideas about different topics because of the many expressions the cartoon people can have. I can see students using this for making stories or sharing their own tips like the ones I did in my video.
Another video site I looked at was Animoto. I have seen people use Animoto before, and I know that it is great for making videos. I tried a few different templates and options before deciding on sharing my PowToon instead. You can upload pictures or videos into a slide show type of format, but it has so many templates and designs that it is much better looking than a simple slide show. Plus, you can add background music and text easily. These can be very beautifully made! I think this is a good alternative to regular slide shows, because maybe it would get students in the habit of narrating, not reading, their presentations. This would be a great site for creating book trailers!
I was also intrigued by PixiClip, which has a whiteboard look to it. I played around with it for a while, and it is very easy to add text and pictures, including a doodling option in which you just use your mouse to draw a picture. It reminded me of the app DrawSomething, because when you play it back, you see how the person drew it. You can add narration, pictures, and videos to this one as well. This would be fun to use for teaching someone a step-by-step process because it just follows exactly what you do in the order you add it to the screen. I plan to use all three of these sites again.
Very cool!
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