Movie Making Apps
Below are just a few of the apps that can be used in the classroom. Most of these apps are stand-alone, meaning that you can just use these individual apps to make videos. However, most of the videos on the ‘Sample Video’ page use iMovie in conjunction with one of the apps below. By doing this, you can weave together the functionality of the app, along with the functions and control you have within iMovie.
Green Screen
Price- FREE, but you will need to purchase a green screen.
Age: 7+
Featured in “Best New Apps in Education” in iTunes. Green Screen by Do Ink makes it easy to create incredible green screen videos and images right on your iPad. Classroom-tested by kids and teachers, this app emphasizes ease-of-use and simplicity while still enabling you to get fantastic results. With Green Screen by Do Ink, you can tell a story, explain an idea, and express yourself in truly creative and unique ways. It’s used in the movies to make it look like the actors have landed on an alien planet, and it’s used on TV to make it look like your local news announcer is standing in front of an animated weather map. The green screen effect works by combining images from multiple sources into a single video. These images can come from photos or videos in your camera roll, or from the live video camera.
Toontastic: School Edition
Price- $9.99
Age: 7+
Lights, Camera, Play! Toontastic is a creative storytelling app used in thousands of schools around the world that enables kids to draw, animate, and share their own cartoons. With over 7 million cartoons created in 200+ countries, parents and teachers rave about the app… and kids can’t stop creating! Making cartoons with Toontastic is as easy as putting on a puppet show – simply press the record button, move the characters onscreen, and tell your story. Toontastic records your animation and voice as a cartoon video to share with friends and family on ToonTube, the app’s global storytelling network for kids.
Tellagami
Price- Free- in-app purchases for greater avatar features.
Age: 7+
When going into the app, there are a few options you need to decide before beginning movie-making creation. You will need to choose an avatar, a background, and then record your voice. It creates a quality video once finished, but there are two major flaws of the app: you can’t record for more than 30 seconds and, once your video is created, it throws an advertisement for the app at the end of the video. If using iMovie, you can cut this off fairly easily, but it is an extra hassle that teachers don’t need. With that said, it is a fun app that kids are sure to enjoy!
Explain Everything
Price- $2.99
Age: Teacher-Use (maybe middle and high school students)
Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere. Create slides, draw in any color, add shapes, add text, and use a laser pointer. Rotate, move, scale, copy, paste, clone, and lock any object added to the stage. This app is geared towards teacher-use, although middle to high school students could also use this for projects, as well.
Sock Puppet
Price- Free
Age: 5+
Sock Puppets lets you create your own lip-synched videos and share them on Facebook and YouTube. Add Puppets, props, scenery, and backgrounds and start creating. Hit the record button and the puppets automatically lip-synch to your voice.
Friends can work together with multiple puppets and create hilarious conversations. While recording, simply tap a puppet and that puppet will lip-synch, tap a different puppet and switch auto lip-synching to it. Switch backgrounds to take your puppets to different places, move the puppets, props and scenery to animate them while recording. Cartoon and photo realistic puppets are included.
Puppet Pals
Price- Free
Age: 5+Create your own unique shows with animation and audio in real time! Simply pick out your actors and backdrops, drag them on to the stage, and tap record. Your movements and audio will be recorded in real time for playback later. This app is as fun as your own creativity. Act out a story of Pirates on the high seas, fight as scary monsters, or play the part of a Wild West bandit on the loose. You can even combine any characters however you want!
Shadow Puppet Education
Age: 5+
Create your own unique shows with animation and
The simplest way to capture and share student work. Designed with kids in mind, students as young as five can make videos to tell stories, explain concepts, or record their progress. Common Core aligned lesson ideas make it easy to get started!
STUDENTS CAN:
∙ Search Library of Congress and NASA for images
∙ Present a project or describe an experience
∙ Develop digital storytelling skills
∙ Demonstrate understanding of a concept for assessment
∙ Improve speaking skills and practice reading aloud
TEACHERS CAN:
∙ Create mini-lessons for blended learning or flipped classroom
∙ Develop a more engaging prompt for an assignment or discussion
∙ Provide an example of a final project for your students
ScreenChomp
Price- Free
Age: 5+
Share a great idea… Explain a tricky concept… Help kids with their homework… A simple doodling board, markers, and one-click sharing tools make spreading your ideas and know-how easy and fun! Just – Record It. Sketch It. Share It. – to create a sharable, replay-able video that tells your story clearly.
Simple Steps
1. Touch RECORD to capture your touch interactions and audio instructions on a plain background, or an image from your iPad camera roll.
2. SKETCH out your ideas and talk the viewer through the “how” and “why” of it all.
3. Stop and SHARE your video snack to ScreenChomp.com to generate a simple web link you can paste anywhere.
