The return of animation

To be honest, I wasn't absolutely taken by the two animation websites, Zimmer Twins and Dfilms, that we used in the last tutorial. I would, quite honestly, prefer something a little more open-ended - something that is less restrictive and would allow students' creative instincts full licence. It would almost be nice to have an activity where an animation was linked to a prior written or storyboarded concept or story - you can't really do that with Zimmer Twins and Dfilms. Not that those two websites aren't useful in their own way, of course... I'm just looking for something more.

I know that many schools these days use a program called Kahootz, or Kahoots, or something. I am not acquainted with it, but it seems to be in wide use so maybe it's what I'm looking for. However, for now, I'm going to take a look at a couple of websites a fellow Education friend has linked me to.

Firstly, let's take a look at Sketch Swap, which you can find by following this linky. Sketch swap is just, basically, a piece of paper and a pen on the internet. Not really what I'm looking for, but a useful tool to keep in mind for the future, never-the-less. Also, it's not all that good for writing accurately. It should primarily be used for a drawing tool in the classroom - however, you cannot change the colour of the pen.

Next, I'm going to have a look at a website called Build Your Wild Self, which you can find by following this linky. Basically, on this website you create a portrait of yourself and then replace body parts with animal limbs, like so...

Sure it's a bit of Art/ICT fun - but could students actually learn anything from this? I don't know - unless there was a discussion about animals and animal body parts and it was part of a larger unit on animals, I doubt it.

I'm beginning to think that these links my friend has sent me have less to do with animation and more to do with potriature. And I can see a link to 'create yourself as a lego person thing' coming up, so maybe I should just leave this blog post here and give Kahootz a try.

So, I came with the promise of animation and discovered potriature instead. Oh well. Doesn't matter. Until next time....