Challenge #5: A is for Animations

Go!Animate is free web tool (there is a paid version with some extra features) that allows you to create short animated videos that can be used to enhance any lesson. Students can use this tool to demonstrate their understanding of concepts. They can express their ideas in a creative way that promotes higher-order thinking skills.

This Edtech Challenge is to use the Go!Animate web tool to create a short animation to use as an introduction to a lesson of your choice. If you are feeling ambitious, you can also have your students use Go!Animate to demonstrate what they learned (formative assessment). For example, you may be planning on teaching your students how to add fractions. You can create an animation to introduce the concept and hook your students. Then, at the end of the lesson, the students can create an animation that demonstrates their learning of that concept or skill.

Including multimedia such as this into your classroom instruction is a powerful way to increase student engagement and make the curriculum accessible to students with different learning styles. Integrating short video clips and animations into your lessons is a very effective practice and can enhance any lesson in any subject area. It is very easy to add these animations (or any online video clip)  to your interactive whiteboard slides so that the flow of your lesson is maintained. You can use links and embed code from the online source to embed the videos to your website or blog in just a few steps. You can find video clips and animations to add to your lessons and you can also create your own with tools like Go!Animate, Xtranormal, Blabberize, Voki, and Kerpoof.

Here are some things to consider as you attempt this Edtech Challenge:

• Go!Animate and other similar tools often allow you to login with your google apps account, so you won't have to create a new account.

• Many of these animation tools have a text to speech option, so you do not need a microphone to create your animation.

• Model how to use this kind of web tool with students and use think alouds to model problem solving and troubleshooting. 

Check out this sample I made to show how GoAnimate can be integrated into the classroom.

Go Animate in the classroom by rsd6techteacher on GoAnimate

Video Maker - Powered by GoAnimate.