Thing 6: Digital Storytelling

My Powtoon

I  decided to explore Powtoons for my digital storytelling blog. The reason that I chose this is because my school librarian uses it with the kids and suggested I try it out with my students. I wanted to learn a little more about it so I created a Powtoon to go along with an ELA lesson that I would be teaching in class on point of view.

I started off clicking the link at the bottom on the Powtoon called "Tutorials Page." This part of the website has a library of videos that you can watch to help you learn how to use the website. I watched the first one which was about two minutes long that gave an overview of the how things work on the site. I definitely think the video was helpful and it was kid friendly so it will be great to show my students before they begin creating their own projects.

I think that my students would love this tool to use to present their work. It requires a lot of problem solving and creativity to come up with a presentation. It gives the chance for the students to work on these skills that they might not have to use often or at all. It might be frustrating and time consuming at first, but in the end I think that my students would take ownership and pride in their work.

I plan on implementing it in my class by having the students create a Powtoon to present their project that they will be researching in class. I am going to have my students pick a persuasive topic and have them come up with evidence to support it. This will cover many standards in ELA including having the students make a claim, support it with evidence from multiple sources, and explain their evidence. At the end, the students can create a Powtoon to present their work. I hope that the Powtoon will make the students motivated to do their best work and finish their research at a reasonable pace so that they can get to the fun part....their Powtoon!

I was considering purchasing the "pro", but it was much more expensive than I realized! It is $59/month for the "most popular" plan with the cheapest plan being $16/month. It is definitely something that my school or district would have to decide to purchase as I could not afford it!

A downfall that I see is that unless you pay for the "pro" plan, you cannot upload the Powtoons. This may be difficult for presentations because the students will not be able to send their presentations to me, we will have to individually log on to each account from my computer to show completed Powtoons. It may take longer, but I do not want the students to be limited to just the free parts of the website.

I look forward to trying this out with my students and will give you an update of my results!