I am a biology teacher for the North Hills School District near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I have been using GoAnimate For Schools with my students for about one and a half years. I teach a curriculum where we do not have a textbook but rely on technology and teacher-generated material for content. The focus in the course is for students to take their knowledge and create projects related to the content. Creation is a major focus in my curriculum because it is the highest level on the new Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy.

I will use GoAnimate to make introductions to lessons or to reinforce lessons. For example, I made a solutions video clip where I created an avatar of myself talking to a cell. The cell experienced the different types of solutions (hypertonic, hypotonic, isotonic) solutions and reacted accordingly. I have also used it to present information on a molecule that cells use to obtain energy, ATP. I used these GoAnimates as part of a flipped classroom. The GoAnimate cartoon assisted in giving my students the content but added interest to the concept.

We began using GoAnimate for Schools last school year. It is a wonderful application for students to allow their creativity to come through as they are exhibiting content knowledge. My learning support students benefit the most from the use of GoAnimate for Schools. These are students who lack reading skills and writing skills. If you were to ask any of them to write a story using dialogue they would not be able to successful complete the task in a well thought out, logical order. However, they are able to create animations, with dialogue, that tell a story and include content information about biological processes. They are very creative when using GoAnimate for Schools.

I use GoAnimate for Schools as a project option for most of the big projects in my classroom. Students use GoAnimate for Schools to illustrate what happens in cells as they are placed in different solutions. They also make animations about the process of photosynthesis and food chains. Many of my students choose the GoAnimate for Schools option when completely projects because they begin a story in the first project and tie into the storyline in the next project. They really look forward to using the program.