One of my favorite channels on YouTube is minutephysics. Their videos take important, and often complex, concepts in physics (What is gravity? What is dark matter? What is quantum tunneling?) and explain them in a 2-4 minute animated white board style video where the "storyline" is sketched out before the viewer's eyes.
Several months ago, I ran across VideoScribe, a product that can make similar white board style videos. With relative ease, a user can create a presentation where a hand holding a marker sketches out each part of the presentation. VideoScribe has a large number of stock images and the user can import his own images as well. Incorporating text is also easy to do.
Similar to Prezi, VideoScribe works on a kind of whiteboard canvas, and the user can choose how the camera pans and zooms throughout the presentation. VideoScribe allows the user the additional option of incorporating music into the presentation and has a large catalog of royalty-free music to choose from.The product is user friendly and the essentials can be picked up in an afternoon.
There are a few drawbacks of this product. First, if the presenter is needing to show something that is text heavy, the "sketch it out" presentation style becomes very cumbersome and repetitive. Secondly, and similar to Prezi, if the creator is not careful, the effect of all the panning and zooming can be sea-sickness (or whatever the equivalent is when watching videos).
VideoScribe has a 7-day free trial before the user must upgrade to the pro version that can be used on a subcription basis for $29/month or as a purchased product ($665 one time).
Videoscribe is not suitable for a live presentation, but for a recorded session, it is a wonderful alternative to Prezi. For my school, I could see using VideoScribe to create a nice, fresh introduction to a course or as a way to post short marketing videos for our programs.
