Monday, April 04, 2011

GoAnimate4Schools is cool

I mentioned GoAnimate the other day and now I've gotten a chance to play with GoAnimate4Schools. GoAnimate4Schools offers both more and less than the free version of GoAnimate. So, what's the difference?

First and foremost I can create student accounts and give them access to stuff I create or upload. With GoAnimate4Schools, I get a lot of the features of GoAnimate Plus. I can upload my own backgrounds or Flash objects. I can even upload videos (up to 10MB) that can be incorporated into my animations. However, I have no way to get my animations out of GoAnimate4Schools.

With GoAnimate Plus you can export animations to YouTube or even buy a downloadable HD video version. In GoAnimate4Schools I seem to have neither option. Right now if I want to save my animations in another form I have to do a screen capture video.

I can create as many characters as I want. In GoAnimate the first character was free, but after that I needed points for the various pieces and parts I'd need for another new character. Points cost money, but you get a bunch of "free" points when you pay for a GoPlus subscription. While I can create lots of characters for free, I have less options for costumes/props. That said, any characters I do create should be available to my students (I haven't confirmed this yet).

So, what will I use it for? I'm not sure yet. I'll probably give students a way to show what they've learned in class in some sort of creative way. But I'll also use it myself. I plan on investigating the ideas presented by Derek Muller in his critique of the Kahn Academy videos. It seems like this may give me a way to make mistaktes in my videos in a more authentic way. So, hopefully students will get a chance to see the sort of missteps they are likely to make.

GoAnimate4Schools.com: Elevator Math by Steve Dickie

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate4Schools. It's free and fun!

5 comments:

Frank Noschese said...

Very nice! I really like the dialogue for the accelerated elevator. You have clearly captured the common misconceptions and had the characters reason through them very well.

Although I still hesitate to use videos (even like this) for delivering instruction, it makes a wonderful review tool. Students who need the review are likely to still have misconceptions. This video shows the mistakes they are likely to make and corrects them rather than just presenting the correct solution. Very powerful. Bravo!

Frank Noschese said...

I tried finding a similar Khan Academy video, but no luck. In fact, upon reviewing all his N2L videos, it is quite apparent he lacks skill as an effective physics teacher. No PER influence at all. He gives you a fish, but doesn't teach you how to fish.

Steve said...

Thanks for the compliments Frank. This year with my dive into modeling I've relied a lot less on the use of videos with my students than I have in the past.

However, due to the nature of our typical school day I find I don't really have enough time in class. It often seems like this whole modeling thing would be much easier if I had a little more time. Our typical class period is only 45 min (too often we have less than that). Another 5 to 10 minutes a day would be huge. So I'm looking at finding ways to make videos that are more modeling friendly so that I might be able to steal back a few minutes here and there.

lindseywright39 said...

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Martin said...

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