I can't tell you how much fun I had planning this presentation! I got to play around making movies, cartoons, and writing scripts! Drama and Art were always my favorite subjects and these programs: Xtranormal, Animoto, and Goanimate are so easy to use.
I was first introduced to Xtranormal when my practicum teacher used it to create a fake video conference with a Ear expert. We were working on the Hearing and Sound unit and had some science experts come in to review the program. The kids loved how both my partner teacher and I got to interact with the Ear doctor. She had the program divide the kids into groups and explain the tasks that they had to do. It created such a fun environment from the very start of the lesson that the students were "hooked" until the end and didn't want to go out for recess!
Xtranormal is very well designed but beware if you are a perfectionist because you can spend hours going over and adding to your cartoon.There are tons of different styles to choose from (cuddly bears and crash test dummies ). If you want to go for the more detailed graphics it could end up costing you. However, as educators we can send an e-mail to their customer service address and get all the fees dropped. I was so impressed with this choice on their part, because this really is a great educating tool. I would caution anyone from letting their grade 4 class go on this site alone or unsupervised just because it does have an age restriction (pg13). I believe they chose this because you can view other people's movies and some of them would definitely not be appropriate for young children. For student use without constant supervision I would recommend Goanimate because it is also easy to use and especially created for a younger age group. I loved the little props that you can use in Goanimate. It is not 3 dimensional like Xtranormal but it does the trick.
WEBSITES:
http://www.xtranormal.com
http://animoto.com
http://goanimate.com
Hi Lara;
ReplyDeleteYeah I understand how animation can get under the skin pretty quickly. It is enjoyable and it seems to create content quickly without much fuss. I use Poser, and 3dmax and am working on photo-realistic animation. I find it most interesting that when animation is obviously character based, then we forgive everything and accept it as drama, but, when animation becomes photorealistic, we tend to push back from it, disallowing our suspension of disbelief, commenting upon how the hair doesn't look correct, or the lipsync is off. I figure that photorealistic animation is too frightening for our reality, because it is the last step in a process of simulation that will not allow us to define reality from fantasy upon a screen. You should look up DAZ Studio if you want a more robust, but, still free animation program.