How Can Teachers Use It?
GoAnimate for Schools has a Lesson Gallery for teachers who are using animations to create informational videos for their classes. Students in their class can view these videos, which can also be embedded in a website. This has the potential to support the “flipped classroom” model where students often learn through video outside of the classroom. Teachers can create their own instructional video animations for class on topics varying from classroom expectations to explaining a concept students are learning in class. These animations would then appear in the class animation "library" for future reference. Students can use GoAnimate to bring their own stories to life, working in groups to animate their own scripts. They could also make lessons of their own, teaching other students about a variety of topics they're covering in class.
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What's It Like?
GoAnimate for Schools lets teachers and students create professional-looking animations with the simple click of a mouse (on the website or Chrome app). This school-friendly version of the original GoAnimate site creates a “walled garden” that allows teachers to manage and moderate all the content students may come across. In addition, student work is viewable only by those within their class or school, unless students choose to sign in and show their work to a parent or another person. Students can create animations and view the animations of their teacher as well as their peers, if their teacher has given them access. Students can create unlimited characters and videos of unlimited length.
GoAnimate has lots of options for creating very slick videos. Simple fill-in-the-blank style animations will work well for younger kids, while older students can experiment with a wide variety of themes, characters, props, and animations. Students can type in what they want characters to say to hear a (somewhat robotic) voice speak the lines, or they can record their own lines directly into the video. The animations they create are then placed in the class "library" and can be seen by the teacher and other students when they log in.
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Is It Good For Learning?
GoAnimate provides a place for kids to watch their stories come to life. There's a very high engagement level with this program; students will love working with the props, animations, and effects to create professional looking animations. This could encourage reluctant writers to engage in script writing and story development more readily than they otherwise might. It's also an excellent alternative to PowerPoint presentations and the like for students to demonstrate information they've gathered.
At the same time, though, some students may rush through the writing process to get to the animation, and many teachers will find the cost (starting at $99 for a classroom of up to 50, or $59 for a single teacher) unmanageable, especially since GoAnimate doesn't offer a lot of actual instruction. Ultimately, it's a fantastic tool if you can afford it and if you're willing to scaffold learning tasks around it in your classroom.
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The teacher dashboard makes managing student work easy.
There are many choices and options for creating your own animations.
A wealth of choices makes video design fun.
The simple interface makes things easy for beginners.
