BP4_GoAnimate

I just checked out Go Animate, a Web 2.0 tool that allows users to generate animated content from text.  It's easy to use, and students would have a good time either creating or watching a video on this site.  More creative teachers could make videos with content from their lessons for the students to watch.  The site is easy to use, and is even tiny-creator-friendly.  My first grade students could use this site with very little problem, although I would probably use this with my middle school Language Arts students.

The tutorials were easy to understand, mostly because they are geared for younger audiences.  They are entertaining, and make the entire process of creating a project less daunting. 


I envision being able to use this tool in my CBR project because my project is simply about enhancing motivation and retention through the use of technology in the classroom.  This tool is 100% interactive, but the students have to have relevant and useful knowledge of a topic in order to create something meaningful, and to ultimately succeed on an assigned project.  Part of my CBR project is going to be to give them a topic (within the realm of a the class novel we are reading) and use the internet and other technology to create a multimedia rich presentation that serves as a teaching tool for the rest of the class.  Use of this tool could act as one part of their project.  They could use a relevant template--for example, if the topic was the historical context of the novel "Fever 1793," they could find a template with characters from that era.  Even if it is loosely connected, the students could make their point.  If the students found pilgrim-ish characters, they could explain the differences and similarities, thus exhibiting their knowledge.

So, once you choose a template, you choose characters.  The characters you can choose from with the basic membership are somewhat limited, but for our purpose they worked.  The school could purchase an upgraded version, or you could ask parents to purchase it.  As you can see from the picture, they characters are not complex in any manner, but that just adds to the content of the video.  Your viewers are not distracted by state of the art graphics here, but are freed up to enjoy what the characters SAY.  The focus here is on the dialogue between the characters. 

After you choose your actors, you can put in your dialogue.  Similar to Twitter, you are only allowed a certain amount of text per line, but you can get a fair amount of information across with the basic membership.  An upgraded membership allows you to do things like export the video to YouTube, download the video to your computer, add more scenes to your video (as opposed to just one scene with basic), explore more voice options (whereas the voice I used was pretty monotone with no emotion or inflection), and upload rich media into your video.  I foresee using this tool more in the future, so I will probably upgrade to the GoPlus account.  If your students enjoy your first video, it would be worth it to upgrade.  If you teach elementary or middle school, it would be worth it as well.  The cost to upgrade for three months is $18, one year is $58, and two years is $108.  I would think splitting a one year plan between two or three teachers would be the way to go.

Overall, I give this Web 2.0 tool 4/5 stars.  I did not give it five stars because I think the basic membership could have a few more features, and the membership is a bit expensive for what you get.  I think this would be extremely useful in a classroom setting, but you would have to really watch how the students use this.  I could see my semi-rowdy 7th graders putting in dialogue that is, umm, inappropriate.  However, this would be an engaging way for them to prove they understand topics, and even more for the other students who will be learning from the creators.