Concept Animations

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a talking picture worth?

Creating a simple animation is easy and pretty cheap on the web these days. Go Animate is an easy to use animation creation platform.

I am always looking for motivators to use with my classes and animations are a great tool. You can add scenes, select from a range of characters, or design your won. You can also give your characters pre-stored voices, or again record your own.
You write the script and build the animation scene by scene. This sort of animation is unlikely to win you an Oscar, but it is so easy to use you can even set it as an assessment item for your students.
Testing concepts in this way is great motivator and a useful tool for identifying prior student conceptions.
Read more in Concept Animations Street Article. or visit  PassingNotesOz You Tube Animations to see some sample animations.

Web 2.0 new tools new schools

Read any good books lately?

I've just finished reading Web 2.0 new tools, new schools.

It's a cracking good resource for teachers wanting to understand the opportunities for learning these tools have created. There are lots of practical examples of what teachers are doing with the technology and how to find Web 2.0 tools for your classroom.

It is a very readable text and you can always skim over some of the historical stuff, if that's not your bag, baby!

You can find a more comprehensive review at http://mobilegamesforscience.com/2011/05/28/web-2-0-new-tools-new-schools-great-read-part-1/

I enjoy reading and try to divide my time between reading for pleasure and reading professionally. I am also always on the lookout for valuable teaching resources and other teacher's experiences with technology.

Feel free to share any resources you've recently read so we can grow our knowledge corporately and help our students learn.