Let me start by saying that I am all about teaching technology skills rather than a particular platform. With that being said, I want to talk a bit about an app/service that makes it so easy for students to create rather than just consume content. Buncee allows students to be in the driver’s seat to show what they know in a variety of creative ways. The push in schools today is to find ways to increase student voice/choice/engagement. Buncee easily gives students the ability to create what they want the way that they want to create it! The learning curve for Buncee is not steep at all. Let your students explore, and it won’t take them long to realize the power they have to be as creative as their minds will let them. The more they use it to show what they know, the better the Buncees will become. I can attest to this.

I started creating a quote of the day about 1 1/2 years ago using Buncee and Tweeting it out. One of my first ones is below…

And…one of my favorites from a year later…

Using Buncee has allowed me to go from taking a quote and putting it on top of a background (literally took 3 minutes from start to finish) that is searchable in Buncee to starting from a blank canvas and building the quote visually using the available tools and images. I have trained my brain to think differently. I never viewed myself as a creative person, but Buncee has helped me to build my confidence level when it comes to creativity. Now I am not afraid to put what I create out to the world. In fact, at #ISTE19 I am going to present Buncee Chopped at the Buncee booth. This will involve me starting with a Buncee that has random “stuff” (not by my choosing) on the canvas and showing how easy it is to create something that is meaningful (hopefully)! This is a confidence that I did not have in the past! You can check out all of the quotes that I have created on this Buncee Board.

I also want to take some time to talk about Buncee as a company. Look…I know…they are a company and their goal is to try to make money, but they do it in a responsible and caring way. I feel valued as an educator by everyone with whom I have interacted. Look…I love tech, but I have never felt a sense of belonging to a company as I do with Buncee. If I have a question, I message them on Twitter and never know whether I will be talking with Cesca, Annie, Bryan, Claire, or possibly the CEO and founder of Buncee, Marie. I cannot say enough about the Buncee team! They have included me in discussions on how to make their product better as well as just connecting on a personal level. I have met all of them and consider them friends. Buncee also encourages relationships through their ambassador program. There are some creative educators that are part of this ambassador program and I value their thoughts on a range of educational topics. Here is a link to my Twitter list of top-notch Buncee users!

Long story short, if you want to explore allowing your students to create on their terms, give Buncee a try!