Review by Stephanie Trautman, Common Sense Education | Updated May 2017
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Buncee for Education

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Easy-to-use slide show tool offers lots of customization

Subjects & skills
Subjects
  • Arts
Skills
  • Communication & Collaboration
  • Creativity
Grades This grade range is a recommendation by Common Sense Education and not the developer/publisher.
3–10
Great for:
Common Sense says (See details)
Teachers say (2 Reviews)
Price:  Free to Try, Paid BunceeEDU Plus plans are $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year for up to 50 students. School and district pricing plans available.
Platforms:  Website

Take a look inside

5 images
The creator studio is simplistic in design, but has lots to offer.
Choose from a bunch of different items to customize your slide.
The teacher dashboard allows for grouping and differentiation.
An example Buncee made by a teacher.
Students can embed interactive media into assignment submissions.

Pros: The simple interface makes assembling multimedia presentations a breeze.

Cons: More design instruction would be helpful, and top-notch features come with a cost.

Bottom Line: A straightforward presentation-making tool with many features.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

Teachers could use Buncee for Education in place of other presentation software (like PowerPoint) to help students assemble online multimedia projects. With an upgrade to a Buncee Plus account, teachers could create a “classroom” through the dashboard. This allows teachers to create, accept, grade, and comment on students' assignments. The site has an Educational Resources library, and once projects are completed, they can be downloaded as JPEGs or PDFs, shared via email or QR code, or embedded into a blog. Buncee can also be integrated into Google Classroom.

When assigning projects to students, teachers should be clear about their content and design expectations. Provide examples, modeling, and scaffolding to help support students' creation. Within the tool, give students limits so that the visual resources enhance, rather than overpower, their projects.

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Standards:

Buncee for Education is the academic arm of the Buncee body of presentation creation tools. The site (iOS and Chrome app, too!) offers simple, free-to-try tools for creating slide shows that can be shared on the web. The Buncee for Education creator has a simple interface to help students create slide shows easily. Students start by naming the project, or Buncee, and then work through the menus to add content in the slides.

An image library includes graphics and photographs to help students customize their presentations, as well as images from the web. Buncee allows photos to be uploaded or linked from publicly shared social media sites, though this functionality may depend on a school's content filtering restrictions. Free accounts can add YouTube or Soundcloud links; a handy toolbar searches both sites from within the Buncee creator. Upgrading to the Pro account gives access to a teacher dashboard.

Like any presentation, a Buncee will only be as good as the content it contains. The creation tool here is relatively easy for students to use -- they'll love making customized multimedia projects. However, an abundance of visual options could lead to poorly designed or cluttered presentations. Buncee offers many add-ons that students could use in their presentation: text, animation, video, recording, stickers, lists, drawings, quizzes, QR codes, etc. The list is pretty long and can help customize a presentation, making each student's work unique. 

For teachers and students, Buncee simplifies the process of creating slides and slide shows, but users should also be mindful of good design technique to avoid overcrowded slides.

Overall Rating
Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?

An attractive, easy-to-use interface may help get kids more engaged in the process of creating presentations. Customizing colors, images, and text will help kids take ownership of the projects they create.

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?

Students can learn valuable presentation and communication skills. Teachers can create customized lessons for flipped instruction or multimedia assignments. 

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?

The creation tool is pretty simple to use. There's an FAQ section and an easy-to-find customer support button at the bottom of every screen. Recording tools and grouping options for differentiation stand out.

Common Sense Reviewer
Stephanie Trautman Classroom teacher
About our ratings and privacy evaluation.

Key Standards Supported

Speaking & Listening

  • SL.5.4

    Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.

  • SL.5.5

    Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.

Writing

  • W.6.6

    Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting.

  • W.8.4

    Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)

  • W.9-10.6

    Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

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Teacher Reviews

(See all 2 reviews) (2 reviews) Write a review
Featured review by
Andrea G. , Technology coordinator
Technology coordinator
Manalapan-Englishtown Regional Schools District
Manalapan, NJ
Buncee: A Must Have for any ELA Classroom!
Buncee is great for retelling of stories or events in the language arts classroom. In a recent lesson, students were exposed to a children's book story of A Christmas Carol. A major teaching point for the novel is theme. Using a children's book version enabled time to be saved in the curriculum while still teaching a crucial skill. Students listened to the read-aloud version and then utilized Buncee as a platform for retelling the story with a focus on theme. Students at the higher end produced multiple slides while students on the lower end were able to produce a few. Students were able to then "play" their end results and with an awesome feature of Buncee, the text was read aloud as the "book" they produced played. Overall, there exists naturally within the program several opportunities for differentiation, both in terms of technology skills and curriculum skills. Getting started with Buncee is also super easy, thanks to their own introductory videos and explanations in text that are searchable. You are able to incorporate a variety of tools - text (some preloaded phrases exist in addition to creating your own), animation, YouTube videos, web images, stickers, Vimeos. Dropbox files, stickers, QR codes, a drawing you create, and you can also search Gooru or add your own list. The only feature that I see missing from Buncee is the ability to collaborate, yet this is not absolutely essential to using it successfully with your students. From the student perspective, it was interesting to hear from their perspective about how Buncee was a better tool than a Google Slide, a PowerPoint or even a Powtoon. For example, hearing one student say, "Now I can visualize the story better," was very eye-opening. Students also pointed out that the versatility and easy access of the tools made Buncee very easy to work with. Overall, it is a fantastic tool and a must-have for any classroom.
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