App Update: Toontastic

Toontastic is a storytelling app that allows our students to animate and record their voices. Our 1st-5th graders have it on their iPads. Back in February, Launchpad Toys released an update of the Toontastic App, which made it much more useful to us with our 1:1 iPads in 3rd-5th and shared iPads in 1st-2nd.

Before:
With our free version and no in-app purchases, backgrounds for setting were extremely limited (I think there was one free one), as were characters. Students needed to draw everything they wanted to include in their videos. Also, students needed to connect to their teacher's account in order to share the video, and the only way was through ToonTube, their own video site. No saving to Camera Roll option!

Now:
Students can save to Camera Roll and then share with the teacher! Backgrounds and characters are now free! It is easy for students to animate characters they draw so they look like they are walking, instead of being a static drawing they simply move across the page.

Using Toontastic

The app allows for multiple scenes, in a story arc format, with scenes for story elements like conflict, climax,  and resolution. You could also add scenes or delete them, and even ignore the story arc idea altogether. Students could even do short, one scene animation videos that don't necessarily tell a story.  Ideas: an animation explaining meaning of figurative language, explaining a science concept using, or animating a historical moment.

With the new Save to Camera Roll feature, your students could easily do an app smash combining a video created in Toontastic with other images and/or video in iMovie.

Student Examples from our Third Graders

Cinderella from the perspective of the prince

Cinderella from the perspective of the caterer of the ball!