Storytelling with Toonastic 3D

There are a few apps that I absolutely love using with students. One of them is Toontastic 3D, a storytelling app that lets students animate and narrate their stories.  I wrote about it several years ago and included some graphic organizers and other resources I created then. Back then the app was super awesome. After Google purchased it, the app has only improved! It now supports scrolling backgrounds and 3D characters and settings.

The app works best on a touch device such as an iPad or Android tablet, but there is also a version available in the Google Play store that runs on select Chromebooks. I'm not sure how well the touch interface translated to a web-based version, but I've got students testing it out.

I recently used Toontastic 3D with 3-5 grade students in a weekly explorations class. After exploring the app and creating a very simple (beginning, middle, end) story, students used this template to develop a story following the 5 part story arc used by Toontastic. Students then spent several sessions narrating their stories and bringing their characters to life. Below are a few of the original stories students created.

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Click the playlist icon (3 lines) to see more videos in this playlist

What went well

• highly engaging - Students were very excited to use the app. They stayed on task and focused on telling their stories. Students that finished the required story early were eager to move on and create more stories.
• ease of use - The first session we met I demoed the app, showing how to add a setting, characters, and record my voice. That was all I needed to do. Students dived right in and were able to show me a few tricks, like adding their own face to a character (that became a huge hit).
• sharing - Students were motivated by their desire to share their story. When I first introduced the app I let them create a simple BME story and then played it to the class via AirServer on my laptop.
• creativity - This is the reason I love apps like this. Its very open-ended, allowing the students to be creative. As you can see from the stories above, the stories varied widely.

What I want to fix

• story development - The problem with engaging apps like Toontastic 3D is that students want to jump right in to the creation part without developing the story first. Usually they end up with a lot of sound effects and fights, but little story. This was a short 6 week course, meeting only once a week for 50 minutes. I tried having the students complete their stories at home so they would have more time in class to record, but they tended to forget their script and had to start over. If this were done in a regular classroom setting where I could stay on top of them, I'm sure the quality of the stories would go way up. 
• best on a touch screen - Because of the way to manipulate the characters on the screen, this app is best used on a touch screen device like an iPad. Unfortunately at my school we are 1:1 with Chromebooks, so I had to scramble to get enough iPads for everyone. There is a version that can run on Chromebooks, but I could already see that the screen was smaller. I'm not sure how the well it will work for moving the characters.
• voice volume - When it comes to recording their voice some students become very shy and talk softly. Plus there were a lot of us in the room so it was easy to pick up each other's voices. The best way to record your voice is with a headset, but I didn't have enough for everyone. You can tell the quality of the sound between those that used it and those that didn't.