Creating a GoAnimate video about saving endangered animals
Objective
Big Idea
Narrative
Introduction
I tell students today wraps up our unit on endangered animals. As a culminating writing assessment, students will integrate the information they have learned from the various Scholastic News articles we have read and the information they have researched about endangered animals in order to create a GoAnimate video. I play the GoAnimate video template tutorial video and walk students through the basic steps to create a GoAnimate video using the video templates to show them how easy it is to create a GoAnimate video. I then play a GoAnimate video I created about endangered animals (After watching the video tutorial, it took me 5-10 minutes to create the video - click here to view) and answer a few questions students have about the assignment.
Writing the Dialogue
To ensure that the lesson is as efficient as possible, I have students work with a partner to write out the dialogue of their GoAnimate characters on the attached Dialogue Worksheet. This is a tremendous timesaver and students working with a partner tends to hold them accountable to one another to stay on task. I also provide students copies of each of the articles used in the unit to use as research resources.
Creating the GoAnimate Video
When we move to the step of actually creating the GoAnimate videos, I find that I have to assist my students quite a bit as this is their first time using the program. It was also beneficial for me as the teacher to create a login account ahead of time which I used to log students in, they create the video in my account, and I save all the videos in my account.
Closure - Share the Videos
To close the lesson, we come back together as a whole group and share our GoAnimate videos. I like this lesson because it combines science, literacy, and social studies content using interactive computer technology.
