Go!Animate

GoAnimate is a really cool site that I introduced to my students this week. You can create individual animations using your own stories and characters. There is a Character Creator tool where you can even design a character that looks like you or someone you know. The Animation Studio allows you to create your own story from scratch. You can upload your own pictures and combine them with the GoAnimate cast of characters. Each character comes with their own set of actions, movements, and facial expressions. There are also sounds, music, and word balloons for dialogue. Your imagination is all you need! The site often sponsors contests and here is my favorite winner from the Christmas Contest:

GoAnimate.com: Peace On Earth by Mojochi

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

Photoshop is not just for Photos

My eighth grade students have been using Adobe Photoshop for the past few years. Photoshop is an incredible software program allowing users to manipulate images in many ways. You can simply fix a red eye in a photograph or create dynamic artistic projects using all the many tools available.
After playing with this program for several years, I realized that we could create computer animations as well. My students used different images in one scene, and then imported them into the animation creator. The results were outstanding and a few samples can be seen below.

Chris's Car Race

Matt's Mario

Emily's Fishtank

To see the rest of the projects, click on my Student Animations page.