Students can record their own voices for animated stories with Plotagon Education’s app; sci-fi and holiday bundles included in latest release

Stockholm, Sweden—December 18, 2015—Plotagon Education, the app that lets students and teachers create original animated videos just by typing, now lets users record their own voices for characters in their stories. Previously, characters in the app spoke only in computer-generated voices optimized for English. With the option of recording a voice for any character’s dialogue, Plotagon Education becomes more fun in every language.

The latest update includes sci-fi scenes and features so students can create their own futuristic characters and blockbuster animations. New holiday “costumes” for characters have been added as well. Students can dress up a character in a festive sweater or build an elf and place her in a seasonal setting. Any character or scene can be combined with any other, so Santa can command a spaceship and a robot can have a conversation with a caveman.

Creating an animated video with Plotagon Education only takes a few minutes. Users simply choose some characters, select their scenes (school, beach, winter wonderland, etc.), type words for their characters to say, and press play to see a script performed as an animated story. The app includes many characters, but users can create their own characters as well, choosing from a wide variety of facial features, hair, clothing and accessories. Videos can be stylized by adding emotions, actions, music and sound effects via simple pull-down menus.

Plotagon Education runs on iPad, iPhone, Mac and PC with an Android version coming in early 2016. It includes a private, digital classroom environment (built on top of the award-winning Plotagon consumer app) so student videos are only shared among classmates and the teacher can monitor all activity.

Educators use Plotagon Education for writing assignments, reteaching subjects, debating controversial topics, creating flipped classrooms, poking fun at school life and more. Students have created animated videos to demonstrate the use of vocabulary words, explain science experiments, role-play debates, discuss the pros and cons of topical issues, practice English as a second language and write fiction—among other things.

Teachers may sign up for a free 60-day trial of Plotagon Education. It automatically includes every scene and character in Plotagon’s library along with a Character Creator. The yearly licensing fee is $99 USD per class with volume licensing available for schools and districts. The free consumer Plotagon app includes a handful of characters and scenes, but animated videos from the consumer app are posted publicly on the Internet and additional characters and scenes may require in-app purchases (per user).

Plotagon recently received the international Red Dot Best of the Best Award in Communication Design (from over 7,400 entries). The app was a finalist in the Fast Company Innovation By Design Awards in 2014 alongside brands such as Disney, Google, and Nike.

Plotagon was founded in 2011. It is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Plotagon Education is available on Twitter (@PlotagonEdu), Facebook and Google+ to provide information, ideas and support to educators.