Using {Powtoon} in the Classroom!

Hey everyone!!

Thank you so much for stopping by iTeach3rd today to learn a new {hopefully} useful idea for your kiddos!! By the way, aren't you just LOVING this blog?? I am so excited to be a part of it and along side some seriously amazing bloggers-who I can now call close friends!

Before I jump right in, let me tell you a little bit about me!

My name is Ashley, and I teach 3rd grade (duh!) in Texas!! I really really love the age and maturity level of third graders. They are little but growing up at the same time! This makes for a fun grade to teach, but as you know can also provide some challenges!

I am newly-ish married to my wonderful husband! We have been together 9 years and married for 1.5! He is a band director here in Texas...for y'all who don't know about Texas..band is HUGE here. He loves his job and is super good at it! He works a lot of late nights, but that's why I have blogging and TPT! ;) He is also super supportive of anything I want to do in regarding to this business. {VEGAS anyone?!}

You might have noticed how I didn't really mention my personal blog...ahem. That is because I am in top secret "Operation Start a New Blog and TPT Store and Facebook and Twitter and Everything Else You Can Think Of" mission that will be announced VERY soon. You might see a little hint on the pictures I post. ;) Stay tuned for that announcement!

OKAY...the real reason why you are here...have you ever heard of Powtoon?! Maybe you have, but have you ever thought about using it in your classroom? Well, I love it!

Powtoon is a great way to have your students create slideshows, movies, and presentations about ANYTHING! and...it's FREE!

I recently used it in my classroom with our environment unit. My students were studying and researching different environments. They had to tell me different plants and animals found there. They also had to report the climate, precipitation, and kinds of interactions you would find in that environment. Instead of having them create a Powerpoint (hey...yall know I love me some ppt!), I had them hop on powtoon!

Now, it does require an email to have an account. My district gave all our students emails this year..we don't use them for actual email, but it was handy to have in this case! If your students don't have an email-just create one for your class!

When they log in they can either chose Animated Presentations or Slideshows...in this case my groups chose slideshows. Powtoon provides templates already ready for you! You can also create your own from scratch.

When they start creating the possibilities are endless! I let mine insert pictures, change the text, and add sound. I limited it at that for now until we get a little more comfortable with it.

I created this planning sheet for my groups to plan out some of the facts and information they wanted to include as well as the elements of their presentation! You can grab it HERE! :)

Here is one of my groups short presentation to the class!

I hope you found this tech tool useful for your classroom! How can you see yourself using Powtoon? Leave some answers in the comments!! I can't wait to hear your ideas!!