App of the Week: Clips

Ed. note: App of the Week picks are now being curated by the editors of Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. Click here to read the full app review.

Clips

What’s It Like? 

Teachers and students can use Clips to create engaging, accessible video presentations that can include Live Titles (captions), music, and fun labels or animated posters. Teachers might create a short video to introduce a class project or even record video instructions in advance for a substitute teacher to play for the class. Students can use Clips as a creative way to demonstrate learning: to describe a concept, deliver a book report, or tell a story. Kids might interview several classmates on a subject and then learn how to edit the video using the simple Trim feature. Since the captions feature is available in so many languages, Clips is a great option for practicing and presenting in foreign language classes.

Price: Free

Grades: 8-12

Rating: 4/5

Pros: Integrates seamlessly with Apple’s photo and music libraries; video captions are available in many languages.

Cons: “Smart” social sharing could be too easy; teachers will want to teach kids about privacy concerns.

Bottom line: This slick video creation app is fun, empowering, and accessible in lots of languages, but be careful with sharing.