Story-telling . . . with animation!

Toontastic is a free app from Launchpad Toys (well, I say 'free', but really, you get the app for free, and then there are all these adorable extension packs. . . and it can be really hard to resist them).

The plusses of the app: it's very easy for youth to use - even the kindergartners can navigate the app easily. The app comes with built-in story-structure lessons that are both helpful and easy to turn off once you've used them.  The animation function is easy to use.  It's a fun app for more than one child to use at a time (so they don't sink into the technology and forget that there are people out there to interact with).  Kids can publish their movies on Toon Tube, so they can share them from anywhere.  Toon Tube movies have to be authorized by an adult, and watching Toon Tube helps kids get new ideas.  And, it's easy to create your own characters and settings.

The downs of the app: Those extension packs are so cute that sometimes kids start clicking on them and get stuck on an in-app purchase screen.  Setting up a Toon Tube account was easy, but setting it up on multiple iPads was hidden and a little confusing (it's in the 'settings' section of the entire iPad rather than housed in the app).  It would be great to have the ability to upload photos and turn them into your own characters to make movies - right now, the function to create your own characters and settings has an end result that looks amateur compared to the very, very cool characters the app comes with.  The animation function should have two buttons - one to erase everything and record from the beginning and another to allow characters to repeat their motions while you move/add in new characters.  And finally, it's too easy to delete characters from the toy box and too hard to get them back when you've lost them to a youth who didn't realize he was deleting them completely from the iPad!

However, even with those downs, the kids at King Street Center LOVE making cartoons.  And we're not just talking about the younger kids.  We catch the teens using the app a lot, too!

And, if you watch some of our movies, consider clicking 'like' on Toon Tube.  We get free characters and props when we get lots of likes!