Museums, and particularly museum children’s programs, are a new concept for Laos. Because of that, it is harder to draw local children to our activities—they are unsure of what we are. Some kids from the neighborhood come and do our print-based activities, but if we had something for them to watch, I’m sure there would be much more interest. That’s why I was thinking we might be able to use your service to make a short animation series, or a longer video and host a children’s movie event—either after school, a weekend morning, or in the evening—to draw more children to our space and ignite discovery and interest in the rest of our resources.

In Digital Citizenship my students engage with Pixton and GoAnimate! apps to create cautionary tales or public service announcements for assigned Digital Citizenship topics (i.e. sexting, cyberbullying, online predators, copyright infringement, etc). The apps offer a lot of room for creativity and learning, students enjoy the activities and their final projects allow me to see if they really understand the lessons.

With the introduction of the new Common Core State Standards, teachers are challenged to bring more non-print texts into the classroom. Educators who are serious about meeting these standards are well served by considering the reality behind the idea of “digital natives.” While our students may be able to use video games, Web sites, or mobile devices, that does not mean they are born with the ability to create and critique multimodal digital texts. The rhetoric surrounding “digital natives” often creates the perception that all students can jump on a computer and produce digital creations professionals would envy. While many adolescents do cultivate new literacies outside of school, their abilities rarely transfer to advanced digital composition skills in school. The truth is that transferring from multimedia “consumer” to multimedia “creator” is a learning process like any other.

The challenge facing educators today is getting young children into the idea of writing for communication. I find that it is one of the hardest areas for me to do as I teach my class of 10 and 11 year old children.

Why are we actually learning to write? Is it just to fill the pages of the exercise book? To demonstrate that we are capable of reproducing what you are telling us? To practise those elements of punctuation and spelling that are taught on other days? Are these the thoughts running through their heads?

Perhaps one of the most liberating moves in the recent changes to the Northern Ireland Curriculum was that Communication was recognised as being in many different forms – not just the writing on the page. This meant that children could be encouraged to Communicate in many different forms – written, spoken, blog, website, etc. This is where discovering GoAnimate has helped the process of children realising that Communication can take many different forms and have many different purposes.

To answer the question of how to motivate intermediate French immersion school students to speak French in and out of the classroom, to step outside of the academic French and into the casual, conversational arena, it is necessary to consider their interests beyond the classroom. In this age of electronic resources, entertainment, games, education and employment, is it any wonder that students can be motivated through the use of electronics in the classroom?

I’m not a young teacher. So, when faced with the prospect of standing in front of a group of people and talking for a while, I’m rarely flustered. Yet just a week ago there I stood, palms sweating, voice wavering, and more than a trace of terror in my eyes. I was at TCEA and I was presenting an overview of engaging alternatives to PowerPoint. It wasn’t that I was unprepared or unexcited about the presentation. It’s that I walked into a room expecting an audience of perhaps 75 people and found myself face to face with a crowd of 400 or more! I started the presentation at nearly a run, and stumbled through the first few minutes barely breathing. Then, suddenly, miraculously, the room was full of laughter. The mood lightened. I breathed deeply and slowed down. I’m pretty sure that GoAnimate for Schools resuscitated my respiratory system.