Kids love stories and kids love technology.  What better way, then, for them to show what they’ve learned than through a book trailer?  A book trailer is like a movie trailer.  You know, the short video clips where that guy with a really deep voice describes all the thrilling parts of a movie without giving away the ending.  Kids can do the same thing!  (Minus the deep voice.)

The first part of the process looks like this:

  1. Kids read and enjoy a book
  2. Kids create a Powerpoint highlighting key points of the book
  3. Kids save their Powerpoint as JPEGs when they’re finished editing

After they’ve saved their slides as JPEGs (picture files) they now have a variety of options to create an exciting multimedia presentation (don’t freak out, it’s really easy!)  Animoto.com and Photo Story 3 are two really great options for creating a book trailers.  And the best part is, the LCISD CITS team has done all the heavy lifting.  That’s right, we’ve created simple cheat sheets that will walk you through the entire process whether you decide to take your presentation online (Animoto.com) or want to add narration and your own transitions (Photo Story 3.)  Either way, you can’t lose, so check out our cheatsheets in the Digital Storytelling section of the Resources page!

P.S.  Don’t forget the most important part…SHARING the Book Trailers!  You’re principal will think you’re top-tech when your kids broadcast these on the morning announcements.