Collecting Animations for the classroom

I love using animations in class. I believe there's a lot we can do with these short, really cute videos easily found on youtube. 

I was having a look at JUX.COM and impressed at how beautiful and different  blog posts can be. As I am a highly visual person, the wide screen images and the way the texts are displayed really attracted my attention.

As I see it, it's one of the most creative blogging platforms there is. The only drawback  I noticed is the impossibility of sharing embeddable applications and the option for a mobile app for blogging on the go. From what I understood, it's possible to publish quotes, articles, videos, photos and slideshows. 

Here I was, thinking of how I could use this beauty for the classroom when I came across a blog post saying Jux.com would close down 31 August 2013 and a message in Jux saying the platform is still running. I truly hope they have changed their minds.

Ok, so what does Jux.com have to do with the animations I talked about at the beginning of this post?

Well, as my first trial using the site, I created a playlist with animations I've selected to use in class.

https://anamariacult.jux.com/ 

How else could we use JUX? Provided it doesn't close down.

- Teachers can use it to showcase student's work such as drawings, videos, poems they've written, stories they've created.

- Students can tell their own stories using images, texts and video. A multi-modal digital story.

- Anyone could use it as a digital portfolio to showcase their work.

If you're interested in using these animations with your own students and would like some ideas, check out this blog post from a while ago YOUTUBE ACTIVITIES IN A FLASH

Would you have any other animations you've used with your students to add to my collection?
I'd love to hear from you.

Create COOL flash animations

Learn how to create your animation with DOINK



Now it's my turn, let's see what I can create. I've created an animation for a quote by Buddha.
http://www.doink.com/clips/anamariacult/1481047/the-present-moment


the Present Moment by anamariacult, made at DoInk.com


Well, not very easy, I guess I need to play at this MUCH MORE. However, I believe students will find it much easier than I did.

HOW CAN WE USE THE SITE WITH STUDENTS?

• students can tell a story .
• students can animate quotes like I did.
• students can animate mini sagas.
• students can create an animation talking about their passions.

Playing with fonts

A selection of sites you can play with fonts:

 FONT DE MUSIC - add music to your font






FONTSELF various fonts with embed codes

MYLIVESIGNATURE  create your handwritten signature for e-mails and blog posts.

 YOURFONTS











TEXTANIM  animate your text

 ICON SCRABBLE - use icons to make a text

SPELL WITH FLICKR Use Flickr images to create a text. (Contribution by Drew McAllister)

Animate a text

Want to animate a short text for a blog, wiki or to send your students a cool message?
Use WONDERSAY to help you create the animation and then embed it or share it via twitter or facebook .
Found the site while exploring David Kapuler's great blog.



made on Wondersay - Animate text with style

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

A dense talk (by Sir Ken Robinson) made visually simple by the medium of animation.
Can't we do the same in our classes, change the way we present, involve our students senses and minds?
A MUST-WATCH.

Going Crazy with flash-gear.com

Funny, every time I go crazy about a site I have to post about it straight-away. I just cant't help it but share. While going through the fantastic WHITEBOARD BLOG I came accross FLASH-GEAR.COM and there are so many things you can do with it. Let's explore!

You can

• make a chat room for your blog.
• make a counter.
• add moving eyes to your picture.
• add an acid effect to a picture.
• turn your picture into an embeddable widget.
• draw online with your friends and embed the drawing board.

I had embedded all my trials, but as they're animations, the page become too heavy so my suggestion is try everything out. It's so COOL!!!

Animasher - create your animation

This is fun. This is just a simple example of what you can create with ANIMASHER.

Animation 1 by Anonymous

Make your own| Clone and edit

I found it via Camila Sousa, a friend of mine.

Creating an ANIMATED music video

Inspired by Nik Peachey´s excellent post (image above) about creating animated music videos, I decided to give it a go myself. Of course my stick figure drawings are poor compared to what you´ll find in youtube but it can give you an idea of what can be done with any kind of drawing.

The task Nik suggested was to select a song you like, draw pictures for the lyrics, take pictures ( I scanned the pictures instead) and assemble everything in Windows Movie Maker.

How to do this kind of task w/ students?

My suggestion is

1. Ask the class to select a song they like with good lyrics (or select one yourself)
2. Grab the lyrics from http://www.lyrics.com/
3. Cut the lyrics into sentences and give them to each student or pair of students.
4. Ask students to draw something to represent the sentence they have from the song. The teacher will need to help sts understand the meaning so that they can draw.
5. Collect all pictures and ask if any student knows how to work with Windows Movie Maker . (many of them can)
6. Ask a student to assemble the pictures and the song to make a music video for the class (or do it yourself)
7. Show the music video to students the following class and have everyone sing the song.
   
   

For FULL SCREEN and EMBED code you can find the same video here
http://vimeo.com/6972744

Revisiting Xtranormal

Xtranormal is a wonderful webtool you can use to create animated movies.

Dianne Krause has created a nice xtranormal movie talking about education in 2025. Interesting stuff!



This is another example we can use for language teaching. By selecting a character, a scenario and a script we can introduce any language point. This is an example of another movie created by Dianne Krause, this time in French.



You can also ask sts to create their own movies with language you've focussed. Isn't it a fantastic tool?

These were my TRIALS

• A birthday card for a colleague
• A video my son made while learning how to deal with xtranormal

To use Xtranormal, create a free account and then click on MAKE MOVIES. Select what kind of character you want, select the scene, write the script and then add animations, looks, music and so on. Click on ACTION to have a preview and when it's done, click on IT'S A WRAP. After your video has been published in Xtranormal, you can also publish it in youtube by clicking on a button. Simply and easy. I'll definitely use it in my classes.

Creating animations

This is a great site I found in Joe Dale´s blog, where you can create incredible animation! It´s quite easy to use, there are plenty of templates, characters and actions to choose from and you can send it to friends via e´-mail, embed it in your blog or make it public in the site. One BIG DISADVANTAGE is the impossibility to view it full screen, but the developers have been working on that feature (hope it´s available soon). Check out my trial video made with the objective of presenting SHOPS people go to.

Link: http://goanimate.com/go/movie/0NOghkrcc-Bg?utm_source=emailshare&uid=332626

ANIMATIONS for your blog and ppt presentations

I´d like to share some sites I came accross today while looking for cute animations for a ppt presentation I was preparing for next week.
This one is from Seven oaks art , just below.

Free animated gifs - website gif animations - free gifs - clipart via kwout

Free animations @ Best Animations via kwout

Animation Central - Free Animations - 3d Animated Gifs via kwout