This tool is great when introducing a concept. It can be the engaging activity before the lesson.
Monday, October 4, 2010
BP4_Web 2.0 Tools
This is an animation site called Xtranormal. This site can create movies with real characters. You can create your own text for the characters. Choose the free characters and you are on your way to creating a movie. I used two robots for my first animation. This site is user friendly and easy to use. There are about ten free characters you can choose from. As I evaluate, my first animation, I could have changed the characters voices and added more movement and music. I choose to do a lesson on "self esteem" for the students - feeling good about yourself!
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I think that Xtranormal is an amazing tool. As a teacher we can use this tool to create educational animations. The great thing about this website is that you can create an animated movie without been an animator with simple steps. This is a web 2.0 tool that I will be using for my educational projects. Good video!!
ReplyDeleteAs a reviewer of GoAnimate.com I was very interested in seeing what you came up with in regards to Xtranormal.com . This is especially true because I just finished paying $18 to sign up for GoAnimate and now I saw how your site was in 3D. It was cool to see what you did with it. The robots were appropriate for that robotic voice and were perfect for your theme of being “unique”. The overall look and feel reminded more like those early episodes of Gumby, where GoAnimate is more like Southpark. I wonder how much more difficult it is to move the camera around in a 3D space. I would imagine we would have to add “amateur cinematographer” to our skill set to pull this off properly.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about using this to engage students before delivering the real content. These animations are set up for quick skits or vignettes, so putting in a whole lesson doesn’t make much sense here. It would certainly be too labor intensive. I think getting the students to use these tools is even more powerful as they have to demonstrate understanding through the careful use of characters, setting, and animation. I suppose you could keep going with this and make a base of characters. We see this with BrainPop.com with the robot and the young boy. However, where does the line go between Teacher and Flash Animator? The way I see it, I can go on and keep making the comic books, cartoons, etc. I always wanted to do as a career; but as a teacher, I actually get paid for it. I can also only do the cartoons I want to do, rather than having to deal with a company or client. The students will surely benefit from our newfound little hobby.
I have a Robotic project for Math where the students create a robot out of geometrical shapes, angles, and identify the shapes and angles. I currently use Powerpoint but I will look at using Xtranormal as an addition to the existing project. I am exciting about exploring this option for projects.
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