The program, called Go!Animate, lets students work in groups on school-issued laptops. Each group shows its cartoon to the class, so everyone gets the lesson.

“I don’t like them memorizing definitions and regurgitating them back to me,” said Leung, a teacher of six years. “I will spend days lecturing; I don’t discredit that. But once they have the background knowledge, I want to see them demonstrate that knowledge.”

Students say the strategy works.

“I’ll remember more (working on the Go!Animate project) than taking notes,” said Hanna Tappe, 14, a freshman from Shaler.

How Can This Be Used In The Classroom?

There is actually an entire subsection to GoAnimate called GoAnimate4Schools. Students and teachers can use this website and this application for classroom projects and incorporating technology into a lesson in order to spice it up and engage the students in their education. Here are several more uses for GoAnimate for schools:

Teacher/student presentations and lessons
Student-to-student tutorials
Foreign language or ESL training
Creative writing platform
Behavioral training (bullying awareness, etc.)
Communication and Special Cases (Autism, Asperger’s etc.)

-Rachel Moore, Rachaelmooreblog.wordpress.com, April 30, 2013

“I discovered this tool through a great blog recommended by Mark Miller called: teachamazing.com. Goanimate4schools.com is a digital storytelling tool, a spin-off from the Goanimate site. It is a cloud-based digital storytelling tool so there is no software download required. You choose a basic scene and then add frames to the reel to create a story. You can change the scene, add charaters that move. You can get even more creative with movments, gestures and emotions. Voices can either be added through a mic recording or a digital voice that will read your text. The school-version of Goanimate solves the problem that this education website points out – that regular Goanimate characters can drink beer, fight and kiss. I could not find beer drinking in the Goanimate4schools site.”

-Unknown, Marne B Adventures ESL, April 24, 2013

“Jackie Floyd, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said based on results of a student survey students’ confidence level with technology rose since the implementation of the pilot program.

“Students have moved beyond word documents…to producing videos and presentations,” said Floyd.

Instead of simple memorization of vocabulary words, students can be creative and develop cartoons on Go! Animate to visualize the meaning of the vocabulary words for the week.”

-Amy Armour, newsmagazinenetwork.com, April 18, 2013