I am on a constant quest to find new sites and #edtech resources to integrate into my classroom. Today’s students are digital natives who have the potential to do so many great things with computers and technology. That is why I feel a huge part of my job is to expose them to different types of technology, websites, and ways of doing things. In addition to this, I also realize the potential that technology has to allow students who might struggle with a pencil and paper assignment, to showcase their knowledge in a more appropriate way. I love when these students blow me away with a digital presentation that showcases all the skills and knowledge they have acquired!
Working with special need students over the years, I have learned the importance of allowing students to exhibit their acquired knowledge in a way that was easily accessible to them. As teachers, this requires a shift of thinking while creating a lesson. It requires us t put more weight on what we want the student to know (our lesson’s objective), and less on how we want them to display this knowledge to us (the product). By differentiating the product stage of the lesson, we allow students to show us what they know, without hindering them with activities that involve skills (which aren’t this particular lesson’s objective) that might hinder their ability to express their thoughts and ideas.
One such resource I found is DomoAnimate! My kids always love new sites, because they are “novel”
and the brain loves novelty. However, they LOOOOOOVEEEE this site! We are currently using DomoAnimate for a social studies unit on community (which I will post more about in an upcoming lesson when they are done), to produce group animations about life lessons every kid should know. (#whathekidsneedtoknow)
After what was a brief 5 minute introduction of the different aspects of the site, my students were off and creating. The interface of Domo is super easy to learn; it just takes a few clicks here and there, and you are off creating wonderfully entertaining animations. In fact, my students loved it so much, almost all of them went home that night and created their own (FREE!!!) accounts and made their own animations. This waswithout being assigned any homework to do so. I love it when they get this excited about things.
Brief Overview of DomoAnimate
The site is powered by GoAnimate, and it is a free animation site. Students are able to animate characters of their choice and they can add unique backgrounds, music, and sound effects too. They can also add speech as text bubbles or add interactive elements for story-telling activities. The website has a very easy to learn interface, with a drag and drop platform that is familiar to students. The best part is that students can make their characters come to life, as each character has a set of actions and emotions that can be added by simply clicking on the character and selecting from a drop-down menu. Domo animations can be embedded on websites or blogs, and can be shared either publicly or privately.
How Can I Use It In My Classroom?
While the possibilities are endless, here are a few ways I came up with.
- Book Report
- Trailer for a Book
- Biographies – animating a subject’s life
- Interviewing a character from a book
- Interviewing a historical figure
- Public Service Announcements
- How-to-Videos
- Bullying Prevention Videos
- Social Issues
- Illustrating Vocabulary Words (they won’t forget them after that)
- Illustrating real-world math concepts
- Sequencing
Have more ideas. Please share by placing them in the comments below!
Click here for a video one of my students went home the first day and made. Pretty impressive for only have used in one day!
Peace, Love, Learn 