Community reviews for GoAnimate for Schools

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IT IS AWESOME!

My students figured out how to use GoAnimate for Students surprisingly quickly. Understanding how the timeline at the bottom of the screen worked was the only area I felt I needed to provide implicit instruction in. The quality of the finished videos are fantastic! The real challenge was keeping them on task and moving forward to complete their production as the many options are fun to experiment with. My students really like the text to speech function and the ability to record heir own voices (I have found this to be lacking from most of the free alternative options). I love that GoAnimate creates an easily publishable product where you don't have to worry so much about your students' identities being revealed. I do miss Domo by GoAnimate which was free and a bit simpler to use. It's a shame they shut it down. Overall, this tool is great for teaching ELA concepts including POV, dialogue, sequence, characters, setting, editing, plot and much more. It can also be used for students to demonstrate what they have learned in any topic (the ability to import your own images and audio files is also helpful for this.) This is also a great option for a maker space or free time to create. The template options allow an easier way to a simple video that allows students to just focus on the characters dialogue. The studio offers highly customizable options including the ability to create your own characters in some themes.

GoAnimate is expensive, and even the 'for education' accounts are not cheap. I like that it is easy to use; students didn't have any problems figuring it out. If I were in charge of budget, I don't know if I would approve the cost for this tool. It is fun and creative, but doesn't really add to students' learning that much. They could show the same learning by creating a storyboard, for example. They could use Voki as well, although they could only have one character speaking at a time.

I like that in GoAnimate there are many choices for themes to choose from. Some are more complicated and sophisticated, and others are more simple. There is one animation theme that only requires the user to choose between a few animal choices, and then simply type in the text to be spoken. On that particular theme the animation is already set, so it requires less tinkering, which might be good with younger students or students with limited computer skills. Students have a lot of fun with this app because of the many choices of characters, motions, and props. I like that it works well for one individual, but also can be used for groups of students to collaborate and create projects together. My students have put together some great projects that were successful in demonstrating their learning in a way that showcased the depth of their learning. The animations are able to be exported as a link or even embedded in an LMS or website, which makes this ideal for online or blended learning situations. Overall, great app.

I think GoAnimate is a great tool to use to teach content and to allow students to create a variation of a product. If you incorporate a storyboard into the process, it would enhance the learning process even more. My only issue with GoAnimate is that many of the selections are premium features. I wish they had an education app that was not so expensive.

It's a good to use to create the finished product with a good amount of support from in class instruction. It can be glitchy as the videos get larger and I would like if the students could share a community library of characters and props to ease with collaborative work but they cannot.

I still like the tool as a way to demonstrate visually what the stories that students come up with. It was difficult to manage time as some students wanted to spend several class periods on minute details and were frustrated with the amount of time given. In the future, I plan on using the app as an option for students. It did serve a wide variety of users as some high level and lower level students really enjoyed it but some felt there were to many options.

As a teaching tool it is amazing to watch the engagement and connections that my students are able to make. I have even had 3rd grade students work on this program and really love what they are able to create. I love to see both the difficulty of the videos increase as the students become confident on the program and the connections that they are making.

This tool is as powerful as you make it. Students can create animations about things you have learned in class, re-telling a story they have read or summarizing a chapter. The ways in which you can use this tool is really endless. Students learned the basics quickly and really took their time to make the animation perfect. There are certainly some issues with the product - like cost and a lack of backgrounds, figures and music...but overall this is a great tool.