Animations

Creating animations is a great way to create interest in students. In this week's workshop, we explored some animation websites and programs which could be used by students in a number of ways. These programs could most meaningfully be incorporated into literacy lessons. Creating animations is also a great way to address the VELS Design and Creativity domain.

Dvolver

Dvolver is a website that allows you to choose backgrounds, music and characters, and enter text to create an animated movie. This site is not appropriate for children, but it's a great way for teachers to explore and create their own animations. If teachers are excited about creating animations, then this will be evident to their students.



This is a fun website, but it highlights the need for teachers to check the appropriateness of the tools they wish to use in their classroom.

Reasonably Clever

The Reasonably Clever website allows students to create their own Leggo character. The site has a 'Kid-Safe' version, which would be great to use in the primary classroom.
















The characters created by students could be used in literacy activities, such as creating comic strips or stop-motion films.

Sketch Swap











Sketch Swap allows you draw a sketch, submit it, and then receive a randomly selected sketch drawn by somebody else. The site is lots of fun, but is not really appropriate for primary school students since there is no control over the image they receive in return for their sketch (the site does say that they 'approve' every image, but there is no guidance on the site as to the criteria for approval).

Zimmer Twins

Zimmer Twins is a great site that allows students to create their own movies. Students can either create movies from scratch, or they can view a 'starter' video beforehand.

















Students can choose scenes, add text, and change characters. The site is a great way to incorporate technology into literacy lessons and would be an excellent vehicle for storytelling.

Rebus Stories

Rebus stories use pictures to replace words or parts of words.

This example is taken from http://www.storygames.com/teachmanpf/Rebus.html

There are number of sites online where teachers can access pre-made rebus stories. For example:

• ABC Teach
• Enchanted Learning Rebus Rhymes
• Highlights Kids (Interactive Rebus Stories)

Rebus Stories are a great way to engage students with literacy. An interesting and meaningful task would be to get students to create their own Rebus story using Microsoft Word. Rebus stories would be particularly suited for students learning to read and students who are unengaged with reading.

ZipTales

Ziptales is an Australian online literacy site. It aims to engage students and enable the internet to be used for core curriculum. ZipTales has an online library of hundreds of stories, which each have comprehension activities linked to them. The site has activities that cover:

• Spelling
• Reading
  
• Comprehension
• Grammar

The site aims to provide key outcomes for literacy programs, and seems to be a great way to incorporate ICT into a literacy program. This is a great example of using ICT in a meaningful way to add value to a unit.

The site is subscription based, however the 'make and do' machine is available for free.

• The machine features a range of activities, in varying difficulty levels
• Each activity has instructions and a video clip, which students then follow
• The activities could easily be incorporated into other lessons. For example, using the paper plane activity, in a science class students could alter the design of the plane and test hypotheses as to which plane will fly furthest.