PowToon is an online tool that you can use to create unique presentations. Getting started was easy. I used my Google account to quickly create a free PowToon account. Once the account was created, PowToon asked which type of user I would be and I selected education. I give a lot of book talks with my students so I thought it would be fun to create a video book talk. Not prepared to start from scratch, I searched the many templates and found one that was designed for book reports. After selecting the template, I was ready to customize it to meet my needs.
There are many ways to customize the templates including changing the pictures, changing the text, adding elements, and moving elements. I found that making changes or additions wasn't always intuitive. Sometimes it took me a while to find what I was looking for or to figure out how to do something. For example, I wanted to make a picture "appear" sooner on the slide but it took a while to figure out how to "move" the picture on the timeline so it would pop up sooner. Overall, there are so many ways to customize the project that I felt like I barely scratched the surface. Once finished, there were many options to export the video. I saved the presentation as a video (the other option was a slideshow) and quickly uploaded it to YouTube. Here is the finished video:
It would be fun to show this presentation tool to students. Many students are not afraid to play around with technology and I bet they could create some very interesting book talks/book trailers using PowToon. Teachers would need to set up an edu account and then create a class. All students would then need is a computer to create their PowToon. Aside from creating book talks/trailers, students could use PowToon to create visually engaging presentations about content they are learning.
