GoAnimate Grabs Their Attention:Bringing a Math Problem to Life!

What would you rather do to grab your students’ attention? Write a word problem on the board or create a short video of the same word problem, using GoAnimate?  I choose GoAnimate! More and more, I have geared my Math lessons toward problem solving, and away from numbers on a page or a worksheet. I want my students to problem solve. When I watch them work to solve a “real world” problem, it makes me proud.

So, how did I get to match GoAnimate with problem solving? I was trying to think of a way to start a unit with a Math problem that introduced the unit, and grabbed their attention. I thought of GoAnimate, which I was familiar with, but hadn’t used in a while. It is very simple to use. They have tons of characters and templates that you can use. You can use your own voice or type in the words. It can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. You can use the FREE version, GoPlus, or GoAnimate4schools. I have a GoPlus account and a GoAnimate4schools account.

I love the fact that GoAnimate works with social media. You can embed, tweet, Facebook,  upload to Youtube, or download. Of course, some of these privileges only come with GoPlus. There is also a FREE and premium account when you are using Gonimate4schools. The premium account allows you to create accounts for your students, and moderate the accounts.  I’m going to plead with my principal to pay for that for my classroom. 🙂 I will definitely have my students create their own videos, which will be very interesting, not to mention educational, and lots of fun!

Give GoAnimate a try, and see if you can’t grab their attention!

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What is a PLC? (Professional Learning Communities)

I knew this time would come. It’s presentation time, the punishment for attending the 2011 PLC Summit in Phoenix, Arizona. 🙂 Well, it was worth it. I have continued to use what I have learned and it’s paying off. Step by step, little by little.  Sooooo, this week we have to do an overview of what PLC is. We took a lot of our information from Solution Tree’s HUGE book they gave us at the summit. We COLLABORATED and came up with this Powerpoint. I also created an animated video using GoAnimate using  ideas we got from Dr.Anthony Muhammad. Check it out! And if you like, let me know what you think!

What is a PLC? – told in Powerpoint

(Check out the characters listed in Dr.Muhammad’s “The Quandary” in my animated video, “The PLC Bus”   http://goanimate4schools.com//api/animation/player
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate4Schools. It’s free and fun!

Getting Animated with GoAnimate4Schools!

I spent part of my Saturday playing around with this site. I discovered GoAnimate a while ago, but with so many things going on, I lost track of it. Basically, it is a site where students and teachers can create animations.  They not only have state of the art animation tools, but, they also have a Lesson  gallery where teachers can view  animations created by other teachers or students.  I like it because it is so easy to use, really.  There is a tutorial on the page to get you started. Each student can have their own account, which can be monitored. I haven’t used it with my students yet, but I am looking forward to it. If anyone has used it, and has any ideas they can share, I would appreciate it!

In order to get the hang of it,  I took one of the ideas from my posts, and made a short video. So cool!
GoAnimate4Schools.com: Give Students a Fresh Start! by Lisa Mims
http://goanimate4schools.com//api/animation/player
Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate4Schools. It’s free and fun!