More than a presentation tool, Keynote is an animation studio and digital canvas for creative learning.
🔍 What does it do?
Keynote is Apple’s flagship presentation app. On the iPad, it allows pupils to combine text, high-quality shapes, photos, videos, and live audio. Its standout feature is its powerful animation engine, which allows pupils to move objects across the screen to explain concepts, tell stories, or create their own mini-movies.
🎓 Why is it useful?
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Magic Move: This is the “secret sauce” of Keynote. By simply duplicating a slide and moving an object to a new position, Keynote automatically animates the movement between them. It’s the easiest way for pupils to create professional-looking animations.
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Infinite Shapes Library: Keynote contains thousands of professional shapes – from animals and nature to symbols and science equipment. Pupils can “break apart” these shapes to customise them or use them as building blocks for their own designs.
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Interactive Storytelling: Pupils can add “links” to shapes or text that jump to different slides. This allows them to create “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories or interactive museum exhibits.
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Live Video: You can drop a “Live Video” feed onto a slide. This shows the iPad’s camera view directly on the slide, allowing a pupil to be “part of the presentation” or demonstrate a physical object while their information is displayed alongside it.
⚙️ How does it work?
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Launch: Open the Keynote app (Blue icon with a white lectern).
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Start a Theme: Tap the ‘+’ to create a new presentation. For creative projects, the “Basic White” or “Basic Black” themes are often best.
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Add Content: Use the icons at the top to add Shapes, Photos/Videos, Audio Recordings, or Tables.
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Animate: Tap an object and select ‘Animate’. Use ‘Action’ to create a custom path with your finger, or ‘Transitions’ to add Magic Move between slides.
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Export: Tap the ‘Share’ button (box with arrow) and select ‘Export’. You can save the project as a Movie or a GIF, making it easy to share on Teams or Google Classroom.
🚀 Beyond the Basics
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Animated Retellings: Pupils can use the Shapes library to find characters for a story. Using Magic Move, they can make the characters “walk” across the screen while they record a voiceover narration using the ‘Record Audio’ tool.
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Shape & Symmetry: Give pupils a set of basic shapes. They can use the Format (Paintbrush) tool to rotate, flip, and resize them to create symmetrical patterns or “shape pictures” (like a house made of a square and triangle).
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Animated Cycles: Use Keynote to explain the Water Cycle or Plant Growth. Pupils can animate water droplets rising (evaporation) or a seed growing into a flower using the ‘Draw Path’ animation tool with their finger.
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Interactive Maps: Find a map of a country. Pupils can place “invisible” shapes over cities. When someone taps the city during the presentation, it links to a slide with more information about that location.
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Green Screen Backgrounds: Pupils can design a beautiful, static background in Keynote, export it as an image, and then use it as their backdrop in iMovie for a green-screen news report.
