Draw a Stickman
Draw a Stickman is a really cute little website. You start by drawing a stickman and then… well go see for yourself.
This would be great on an interactive whiteboard to help with the drawing – but works just as well with a mouse.
Take a look at http://www.drawastickman.com/
Thanks to my colleague Laura O’Halloran for posting the link on Facebook earlier today.
Read MoreTell a story with Go Animate
Go Animate is another great website where pupils can very quickly convert a short typed dialogue into a animated conversation. Simply choose the setting, the characters and write the dialogue to be spoken. The site will generate the speech and animation on the fly.
The site is free at the basic level, although some scenes and characters will require payment. A login will be needed, so you might want to set up a class account.
Finished videos can be linked to or embedded in your blog/VLE. For a small fee you can download a high quality video file.
Here’s an example video produced to discuss the results of a science investigation. Pupils could use this as an alternative to writing up the experiment in the traditional way. (In this way it’s very similar to Xtranormal).
This could also be used for creating a discussion between two different characters from a novel being studied, or from a period of history. Language settings can also be changed to Spanish which might be of interest to MFL teachers.
It could be used to create a story starter – or as an alternative way of introducing a topic or starting off a lesson.
GoAnimate.com: Chemistry Example by dannynic
You can find out more at GoAnimate.com. There’s lots of uses – have a play and let me know what you do with it!
Could you see this being used by your students? Add a comment below!
There’s lots of uses – have a play and let me know what you do with it!
Read MoreScience Predator and Prey Stop Motion Animations
Have had a fun couple of days over the last two weeks working with the staff and students at the Brighton Aldridge Community Academy. One of the things I really enjoyed doing was animation with one of the science classes on Predators and Prey. The class had already made models in Plasticine and I spent a lesson with them helping them to make their animations in MonkeyJam. For most of the pupils it was the first time they had done any animation, and so their models were brilliant, but not all were easy to then animate.
Here’s a selection of their animations:
I especially liked the giant octopus!
Read MoreHue Animation Studio
Hue Animation Studio is an all-in-one kit to kick start your animation project.The pack includes a webcam and some animation software plus some modelling clay to get you started. I was sent a trial version of the pack to review
The studio includes Zu3D animation software which I wrote about last week which is a very user friendly piece of software. I found it very simple to create a simple stop motion animation and add sounds and titles. Zu3D lets you do onion skinning – so you can see a ghost of the previous frame overlayed onto the live image so it’s easier to see how far you have moved your character before you take the next picture. A very handy feature.
Also included is a Hue flexible webcam. This webcam includes a microphone and comes with a long flexible neck which will help position the camera at a variety of different heights and angles. The picture quality of the webcam is very good and the manual focusing was quite simple to use.
For info the Hue Animation bundle, which comprises Zu3D plus the webcam costs £59.99 on Amazon. But it is worth knowing that Zu3D itself can be downloaded on a 30 day trial and then activated for £29.99. The Hue webcam can be bought on its own for £29.95 on Amazon. Not included in my pack, but apparently part of the bundle, is a pack of plasticine – I bought a simple pack of 8 colours for £1 in Tesco.
I can see that it’s more convenient to buy the bundle, but you will not really be saving any money compared to buying the components individually, especially if you already own webcams in school.
And while the flexible webcam looks great, you can buy things that look similar for about £10 on Amazon for example this camera which costs about £7. Any webcam will work with the Zu3D software.
If you do already own webcams then you can just buy the Zu3D software direct from Zu3D website. And if you want to run this on multiple machines, site licence deals are also available.
Find out more at http://www.hueanimation.com/ and find out more about Zu3D at http://www.zu3d.com/
If you’ve bought the pack – let me know what you think in the comments below!
Read MoreQuick and Easy Animation with Zu3D
Yesterday I attended the E2BN conference in Bedfordshire. One of the workshops I attended was by Oscar Stringer of Animation for Education. It was a fun workshop and gave me some more ideas for using animation in the classroom.
The software we used was Zu3D which was pretty easy to get to grips with very quickly. You can download a demo version for free from the Zu3D website. If you like it a single version licence costs only £29.99. Site licences are also available.
It’s a great bit of software which has all the features you’d expect – onion skinning, variable frame rate, copy/past frames and simple playback to review the work so far.
We very quickly made a simple animation from a few lumps of plasticene. The software made it easy to add sound effects and credits and title without having to use other software such as Movie Maker. Several sounds can be layered on top of each other
Here’s what our group made in about 15 minutes:
For some resources to help your class plan an animation, check out the animation for education website and also the learning tools section of the Zu3D website.
For some inspiration for classroom ideas – check out this YouTube channel : http://www.youtube.com/user/claymot
Read MoreMoviesoup – simple animation software
Moviesoup is a neat bit of software which makes animation simple, even for absolute beginners. Students can create animations directly on screen in just a few minutes.
It’s very simple to use. No need to read lengthy manuals just to get things moving: where others juggle with key-frames, motion-paths and transforms, moviesoup animators simply record and edit animation directly on screen.
You can download a free trial which creates animations which are watermarked. If you like it, a full version costs £49 and site licences are available too.
The website has several video guides which help take you through the process of creating your animation, and there’s also a clip art library to help your students get started.
Thanks to Angie at Edit Training for the link.
Read MoreThe Tate Movie Animation Project
The Tate Movie Project is the first of its kind – an animated film made by and for children across the UK. The Tate Movie Project is a uniquely ambitious project using great artworks to inspire 5-13 year olds nationwide to contribute their ideas to an animated movie.
Even though the movie itself is almost finished, anyone can still use the tools to create a movie in the Animation Studio – Edit your own mix and other cool stuff.
Teachers can also download teaching resources for using animation in the classroom.
Thanks to Angie at Edit Training for the link.
Read MoreStop Motion Filming with JellyCam
JellyCam is a simple, free piece of software to allow you to make stop motion videos using a webcam. You can download JellyCam for free here.
As a complete beginner, I found it very easy to use. There’s very little in the way of whistles and bells. You hit the space bar to take another frame, and the software allows onionskinning so you can get an idea of how the new frame relates to the last frame.
You could use this with a webcam, a visualiser, or upload still photographs taken with a regular digital camera.
JellyCam produces a Flash Video file (flv) from your movie and even links straight to YouTube so that you can upload your finished video. I couldn’t see how to add an audio track – so you might have to do this in an additional piece of software.
Here’s something I put together in about 5 minutes after installing JellyCam. Very straightforward to use!
You’ll need Adobe Air to be able to install it. Which you can download from here. If you’re looking for some no-frills stop motion software then you should definitely take a look at JellyCam: http://www.jellycam.co.uk/
Thanks to Angie at Edit Training for tipping me off to this software.
Read MorePictaps
Thanks to Mark at Promethean for linking this great site on Twitter. It’s an interesting introduction to animation.
Basically you can create your own little character and watch him/her dance.
To make your own, click on the Paint icon in the bottom left corner of the screen. You are then taken to a painting screen where you can freehand draw, or use shapes, to create a character within the outline of a person.
You can then watch him dance, and also view the creations of other people. It is then possible to embed your creation into your blog… which hopefully I have done below.
If that doesn’t work, click here to see it.
You do not have a lot of control over the movement – this is purely for creating a dancing person, but it is quite fun!
Check it out here.
Read More
About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
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