Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

Here at the Schlechty Center, we have analyzed the Every Student Succeeds Act. We are pleased with much the new legislation has to offer. We note there is a definite retreat from the overindulgence in high-stakes testing that we have lived under with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. We hope states will take advantage of this and implement reasonable accountability measures that are conducive to a positive learning environment for students and educators. A detailed analysis of the law is available here. An executive summary from NASSP is available here.

ESSA has a lot in it for districts to consider. It is important to remember that ESSA is only one part of what schools work with to bring a great learning experience to students. Districts can gain a lot by examining how all these parts relate to a cohesive transformation strategy. Our Strategic Change Agenda is a fully customizable tool that can walk your district through this process from beginning to end. It can be used to create an entire transformation strategy. It can be used to guide an ESSA school improvement plan.

Here are specific ESSA highlights that intersect with what we have to offer at the Schlechty Center:

Title I

Title I of ESSA requires that states develop a statewide accountability system to improve student academic achievement and school success. We particularly noted that student engagement, educator engagement, and school climate may be included in addition to achievement assessments, graduation rates, and English language proficiency.

Districts must develop a comprehensive support and improvement plan for the lowest performing five percent of all Title I schools and all high schools that fail to graduate less than one-third or more of their students. Districts will still create school improvement plans, and now engagement is specifically addressed. Our Strategic Change Agenda will guide you through the process.

Student engagement cannot happen unless teachers design engaging work. Our Designing Engaging Work workshop explores the heart and soul of providing engaging work for students. Teachers need a process to create engaging work, and this is it. Designing Engaging Work is offered on-site or in conference formats.

All the best-laid plans can go astray if the capacity to deliver is not addressed. The Schlechty Center’s Taking Stock examines a district's capacity to implement changes needed as a result of ESSA.

Walking to Learn gets right into the classroom and is an excellent tool to discover and explore what is going on with student learning so educators can make quality decisions on change. It can be used alone or with other premium offerings to address ESSA needs.

In Coaching for Design II, we train teachers and leaders to coach the process of designing engaging work. C4DII is an excellent tool to maintain a culture of designing engaging work in your district.

ESSA addresses staff engagement, and the Schlechty Center offers Creating a Strategy for Engaging Staff. Delivered on-site, this premium offering can be used to truly look at staff engagement in your district.

Title II

Title II of the Every Student Succeeds Act provides grants to districts and states to improve teacher, principal, and school leader effectiveness. We couldn’t be more excited.

In March 2015 we will unveil a new Principal’s Network. Offered at a very modest cost, this network will allow principals to connect and learn on a wealth of topics of concern to them. Best of all, the network will be digital and will not require any time away from the school building.

We offer off-site workshops for teachers, principals, and school leaders in our Summer Academies and Working on the Work Conferences.

Title IV

Up to 60 percent of Title IV funds could be used to support the effective use of technology with no more that 15 percent going to hardware. This means funds can and should be used for professional learning in technology areas.

The Schlechty Center offers Engaging the Net Generation and Engaging the NEXT Generation—the best technology integration workshops in America. We show your teachers how to use technology to engage students, not just replace existing work. Your teachers will not only learn about many digital tools, but they will also learn how these tools can be effectively used for profound learning. We offer these sessions on-site or in conference settings.

Implementing ESSA will require the collaboration of educators and school boards. Our online course School Boards for the 21st Century offers quality school board training in an online environment. Our School Board Conferences offer training in a workshop environment.

The pride and joy of the Schlechty Center is that we model what we teach. We have an amazing array of tools that we believe are second to none in delivering quality professional development. We will totally customize any offering to meet your needs. Looking for five to ten days of on-site professional development in technology? Call us. We can do it. Need on-site coaches for professional development or designing engaging work? Call us—we can do it. Need specialized help with your improvement plans? Call us. We can do it. We are just a phone call away: 502-895-1942.

We close where we started. Keep your eye on the big picture! Make ESSA a part of a cohesive transformation strategy.

The Engagement People

2015 in Review

As the year comes to an end, we offer you this review of our 2015 blogs in case you missed any. We've included a short synopsis with links to the original full-length blogs in case you see something you missed and want to refer back to the full-length version. We have also grouped these by broad topics. Enjoy.

Digital Tools and Engagement

In February 2015, guest blogger Roland Rios from Fort Sam Houston ISD in Texas introduced you to SafeShare.TV: a great site to play YouTube video without ads. We also reviewed the MindShift Guide to Digital Games and Learning. This document is a must- read for all teachers using gaming in the classroom. March came and we were on to The Amazing World of Gamestar Mechanic. Gamestar allows students to create digital games based on teacher-given content. Imagine the possibilities. March also gave us a great review of Whyville, an online multi-user virtual environment where students can learn from embedded games while all along being a citizen of Whyville. In April we looked at Augmented Reality and Engagement and by May we had moved on to explore an exciting new video editing program: EDpuzzle. In August Roland Rios introduced you to Google Cardboard, an inexpensive virtual reality program. An exciting animation program called Plotagon was covered in August. This cool animation software is free with lots of options. We are still using our free version. September is when Pixar-in-a-Box was unveiled in a blog called When Digital Collaboration, Engagement, and Design Come Together. Tuva came your way in October of 2015 in a blog called Need Data? Get Tuva! This exciting data- analysis program offers a ton of classroom opportunities to use the Design Qualities. In November we turned back to animation with a blog called Scratch: A World of Possibilities. Finally, in December we reviewed the very cool Kerbal Space Program. Imagine you work at Cape Kennedy building rockets that you actually fly out on missions.

Transformation

In February, we gave you our slant on combining technology with design and engagement in one of our first blogs entitled Digital Tools and Engagement. By applying the Design Qualities to the design of digital work, teachers can really leverage these powerful tools. Also in February we based a blog around the great work of Midlothian ISD teacher Ann Witherspoon; our post was entitled Product Focus and Creativity. Phil Schlechty also blogged this month on a topic called The Teacher's Dilemma. Our next transformation post appeared in May when we talked about Collaboration in a Digital World. May also gave us a moving slant on Digital Equity featuring a video from Kid President. In June, Ron Wright wrote of his personal experience with the power of making in a blog entitled Makers. It was August before transformation appeared again. This time it was in the form of a blog called In Support of Engagement. This important blog shared some recent evidence and articles written in support of the need for engagement in school. We urged you to move beyond strategic planning by considering a Strategic Change Agenda in September. Finally, in November we dissected the very important NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition.

It has been a great Year One for the Engagement Connection. We have enjoyed bringing you these thoughts on engagement, digital tools, and transformation. We hope they were helpful to you. Here's to 2016!

The Engagement People

Kerbal Space Program

At its heart and soul, the Kerbal Space Program (KSP) game is a laptop-/desktop- based space program simulator. Young players start from scratch building a rocket, adding crew, launching-failing-fixing-relaunching, returning to earth, planning and executing missions, etc. Along the way, they learn a lot of STEM content. The free demo is available here.

Watch this Seth Macy review for PC.

We downloaded the free demo. Once it was installed, we were able to play the game without an Internet connection. We would note here that while the demo is free and very satisfactory, KSP is intended as a game for purchase. There is an edu version for schools. There is a classroom package available for $330 dollars that comes with 25 seat licenses. Kerbal is quick to point out that the seat licenses go with the computer—NOT the student. So, a classroom teacher with four classes could buy one 25-seat package and use it all day. Also, and we thought this was really cool, the licenses do not expire. Buy it once and you are set.

To learn the game, we first worked through the training program. In step one we built a rocket ship. The process was accurate and called on actual science principles. First we chose a command capsule, then a fuel tank, engine, etc. We like that the process caused us to think, research, and inquire. Young students may really engage with the Novelty and Variety of the process. It is scientifically accurate. For step two we learned to pilot our rocket. We were given basic controls including throttle, pitch, yaw, and roll. We learned abut staging and specialty controls like RCS. In step three we learned to fly a spacecraft in orbit. In step four we learned about experimentation and the scientific process for our space missions. With all this training in hand, we were ready to tackle a mission.

All of this opens the doors for KSP to address a lot of Design Qualities that may lead to student engagement.

The teacher can control some content in the edu version by creating customized missions. The science principles contained inside the game will meet a lot of classroom standards and twenty-first-century thinking skills. There is nothing here that a parent would find objectionable. The content is so obviously science-based.

KSP is not a game a teacher can sit down and master in 30 minutes and then implement in the classroom. It is far too complex for that. We suggest that teachers learn right along with their students. Check out the teacher resources and, as we often recommend, find and join a cohort of fellow teachers using the game. Start with the demo package before you invest.

Kerbal Space Program is a wonderful simulation game that has a lot of potential for engagement and profound learning when matched to the needs, motives, and values of young learners. We hope you check it out!

The Engagement People

Scratch: A World of Possibilities

We are always on the lookout for games that allow students to create while their teacher designs the parameters. We recently blogged regarding a platform called Gamestar Mechanic. In this platform, teachers can set a variety of mathematical conditions based on standards they need to cover, leaving the student to create the games. It can be a powerful alignment of content and social motives.

Scratch achieves the same goal in a very different manner. Simply put, Scratch allows the student to place one or more characters on a graph and to cause the character(s) to move around based on mathematical formulas. Watch this short video and see how a square is drawn using graphing coordinates.

Scratch can also be used to create animated stories. It lends itself well to language arts content. Scratch also follows computer logic using "if/then" statements.

Scratch can be used to leverage a variety of Design Qualities. Students who create games are working in Product Focus. There may be real Authenticity since this is a gaming platform. Initial use may be very Novel.

Scratch comes to us from the MIT Media Lab and is absolutely free!

As in all games where students are going to create content, the teacher must learn the basics of playing the game. Becoming a master is not necessary, but learning the basics is. Students also need to learn the game parameters up front. Scratch is moderately complex, but there are excellent tutorials available. We like the series created by Kevin Briggs for learning to use the platform. A YouTube search of "Scratch Kevin Briggs" will reveal the entire series. The actual Scratch tutorial videos can be found at this link: Scratch Tutorials. Here is an introductory video:

If we had one suggestion for Scratch, it would be to put together a game-based series of challenges that help students and teachers learn the game, similar to the Addison quests in Gamestar Mechanic.

Let us know what you think about Scratch!

The Engagement People

The NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition—A Review

The NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition is an important document. Educators with an eye on the future who are concerned about engagement and interested in technology integration need to read this report. This blog post will be unique in that it will be more of a study guide to use with the report. We suggest you go to the report, download it as a PDF file to your desktop (completely permissible), and then keep this blog post open as you read the report. Don't see a download option? Just print it as a PDF to your desktop (so you can highlight, underline, and write in the margins).

Who are these guys?

"What is on the five-year horizon for K-12 schools worldwide? Which trends and technologies will drive educational change? What are the challenges that we consider as solvable or difficult to overcome, and how can we strategize effective solutions?" (NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition, page 1). Any time a report comes out that attempts to answer these important questions, readers should be leery. We started at the end to find out who the authors were. We wanted to know if they could have hidden agendas, like profiting from technology use. We were pleasantly surprised. The report called on the collective experience of 56 contributors. Their work was fully transparent and even documented on a public wiki. The contributors represent a global collection of experts from public education. In addition to K-12 educators, there are representatives from colleges and universities, nonprofit think tanks, and the New Media Consortium (NMC, a nonprofit think tank). We noted only two representatives from the commercial technology world and they were from Intel. We found the panel balanced and did not see any conflicts of interest. In short, the report is a true attempt to answer the aforementioned guiding questions without any obvious ulterior agenda! Good job, NMC!

What does the report say?

The panel found two long-term trends for the future of education in the next five years:       “ ... (1) rethinking how schools work in order to bolster student engagement and drive more innovation, as well as (2) shifting to deeper learning approaches, such as project- and challenge-based learning" (page 1).

We have been advocating for this at the Schlechty Center for many years. Everything we do has student engagement at its core. Phil Schlechty has said many times that learning begins with a product or problem about which the student cares.

To those of you who have worked so hard to advance these very changes, you should feel good that the tide is turning. You are on the right path.

These are the main two conclusions, but the report also examines 18 trends including innovations like collaborative learning approaches, the shift from students as consumers to creators, blended learning, STEAM, 3D printing, and adaptive learning.

The report also addresses challenges to making the changes that are trending. Some challenges are solvable and others are quite "wicked." For example, one solvable challenge is the way we do professional development. In the area of technology integration, we must shift from PD sessions where teachers "sit and get" to a very active, participatory, collaborative, engaged design similar to what we expect teachers to facilitate for their students.

NMC reports that scaling innovative classroom designs is a "wicked" challenge. We agree. With years of prescriptive teaching models as the dominant classroom pedagogy, shifting to a design model where teachers create original customized work that meets the needs, motives, and values of their students (i.e., engages them) is a disruptive innovation. But to be sure, it is happening. To see examples in action, visit the Quest to Learn website or the High Tech High website and see what is going on.

The report sees BYOD and makerspace innovations as being increasingly on the rise. We have blogged about the maker movement, and its inclusion in this report is excellent. Product Focus is at the heart of the maker movement.

How can we use this report?

NMC clearly states, "Education leaders worldwide look to the NMC Horizon Project and both its global and regional reports as key strategic technology planning references, and it is for that purpose that the NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition is presented" (page 1). In short, this report can be a great reference point for educators seeking to implement change that supports engagement and technology integration.

Are there some follow-up questions for educators to discuss?

We think so:

How do the findings in the report align with your classroom pedagogy?
What roadblocks prevent you or your district from moving forward to address engagement?
Does this report cause you to celebrate or does it cause concern about the future for your students?
What capacity building do you need to do in order to create a core business of engagement?
How would you answer the guiding questions in paragraph one of the report (page 1)?

Here is a possible PD activity using this report:

• Divide the 20 different "big ideas" in the report (two conclusions and 18 trends) among members of a study group, participants in a faculty meeting, attendees at a PD session, etc. (If you have less than 20 people, have each person pick one idea of interest. Large groups will have multiple people on each idea.)
• Study the big ideas with these guiding questions:
  • How does this relate to engagement?
  • What Design Qualities does it leverage?
  • Can it be utilized in a design environment or is it a rigid program?
  • Why would you advocate (or not advocate) for this idea as a positive addition to a teacher's design toolbox?
  • What capacity issues does this idea present for you?
• Have each participant prepare a digital presentation that answers the guiding questions using a digital tool new to them (or not new to them).
• Divide participants in half. Spread Group A out around the room with their presentations (computers) in hand. In five-minute bursts (we call this Speed Sharing), allow Group B to visit three to five different presentations, depending on time. When finished, swap roles so Group B presents and Group A visits.

You may just cultivate some trailblazers to lead you forward!

As always, we welcome your comments and discussion below.

The Engagement People

Need Data? Get Tuva!

Tuva is a unique data analysis tool available free on the web. It is really a very cool tool for school use. It can be used in the classroom or for school data analysis.

It is necessary to create a free account to use Tuva (Tuva Basic). Free accounts are available for teachers and students. A teacher account allows a teacher to create classes to organize and manage student work. (Tuva also offers a fee-based package called Tuva Premium, but most educators in the field report that they are able to get a lot of use from their free accounts.)

At the heart of Tuva is raw data that is uploaded by a user. Once the data is loaded, Tuva allows the user to manipulate and compare the data in a variety of ways. However, uploaded datasets become part of a library that can be accessed and used by others. There are many different datasets already available in Tuva, and teachers could design work using just the existing Tuva datasets.

In addition to facilitating work with data, Tuva also provides activities that could be customized into student work designs to suit the needs, motives, and values of students. Tuva can address multiple Design Qualities when incorporated into student work designs. Really, Tuva is all about Organization of  Knowledge. There is a certain Novelty aspect to the platform during initial use. Depending on the work design, Tuva can address all the other Design Qualities too.

The two videos below demonstrate the tool.

We hope you enjoy exploring Tuva!

The Engagement People

Move Beyond Strategic Planning

Strategic planning. We've all been there. As teachers, we likely had our first experience serving on a committee to write action plans. As administrators, we perhaps were involved in the larger planning of goals. As senior administrators, we may have had the task of coordinating stakeholders like school board members and community representatives in order to get their input.

And when we were done, we held a notebook in our hands with well-typed pages about our vision, our mission, our goals, and the actions we would take to implement the plan.

We hoped the plans came to life. In the best of circumstances, we did our level best to implement the plans we wrote. But all too often, our plans ended up on a bookshelf, lucky to get an annual review as we returned to the day-to-day realities of running our schools.

We can do better.

Strategic planning should support the core business of schools rather than become the core business of schools. It is time to go beyond strategic planning and move up to a Strategic Change Agenda.

While most school districts have strategic plans in place, there are often a multitude of additional plans, driven by various mandates, living alongside those strategic plans. Furthermore, strategic plans tend to address tactics instead of strategies that reflect the current changing context and create a focus on the future. Lack of coherence and an emphasis on tactics often causes weak implementation, frustrated stakeholders, and the dubious "notebook on a shelf" syndrome.

If it is the intent of district leaders to continually improve their organizations without introducing changes that challenge the current culture and structure of the district, then a traditional strategic plan may be in order. On the other hand, if the current culture and structure inhibit the capacity of the organization to successfully meet the needs of students and community, then a different process is called for.

A Strategic Change Agenda creates an opportunity for school districts to transform traditional strategic planning into an active, actionable, nimble process that maps a customized path for positive change. 

A Strategic Change Agenda replaces traditional strategic planning with a guided strategic thinking process. Leader aspirations and district capacity come together to co-create a path of action steps and milestones that will engage the entire stakeholder community in envisioning, supporting, and sustaining quality education for students. A Strategic Change Agenda goes beyond a strategic plan to create a new way of thinking and problem solving that will allow districts to sustain innovation in the face of future changes and challenges.

In short, a Strategic Change Agenda places more emphasis on the following:

• The changing context in which school districts operate
• The capacity of the organization to focus on the future, maintain direction, and act strategically
• Understanding the needs, interests, and motives of the stakeholders affected
• Assessing progress as well as performance
• Accountability based on trust
• Having those who implement action plans develop them
• Student, staff, and community engagement
• Becoming a learning organization
• Turning aspirations into reality
• Lasting change

It's time to move beyond strategic planning and embrace a Strategic Change Agenda. Interested in learning more? Contact us for more information.

The Engagement People

When Digital Collaboration, Engagement, and Design Come Together

Mr. Smith is in a quandary. His standards require that he teach his students about parabolas. There are formulas they must learn to use. In the past he has struggled to find a connection that his students might value, and teaching this material has been difficult.

While monitoring his Twitter feed, Mr. Smith comes across an interesting possibility. He decides to break it apart, analyze it, and see if it might help him engage his students in working on this standard. The possibility is called Pixar in a Box.

Pixar in a Box takes students into the world of movie animation and shows them how animators create their movie scenes. After introductory material on animation, the program starts with a basic process of animating leaves blowing in the wind and shows how the action is created with math. The work is based in parabolas and teaches the concepts of parabolas.

Mr. Smith thinks about all this in terms of social motives. His students like making movies. They all have movie-making programs on their smartphones. They shoot video clips and create short movies in their everyday lives. The movie examples in the Pixar work are a little dated, but this may play out in his students' favor as they are movies many have watched in their elementary years, like Toy Story, Cars, Brave, and Finding Nemo. The Pixar work is cosponsored by the Khan Academy, and the accompanying math explanations are very clear. He looks at how the work is organized and likes the sequencing and the use of video explanations. Instead of listening to him lecture, his students can play the videos back and forth as needed and work at their own pace. Mr. Smith will then be free to walk around his class and coach as needed.

All of this just capitalizes on Authenticity (they are legitimately interested in movie making),  Novelty and Variety (the examples are cartoon animations they should identify with), and Organization of Knowledge (sequencing, video presentation of content).

His students have shown in the past that they value these qualities of schoolwork. The Pixar work has stimulated Mr. Smith's creativity and he begins to wonder if he can design a larger body of work around the concepts of math, animation, and movie making. He has access to other animation programs like Sock Puppets and Plotagon. His students could create animated explanations of math concepts with these. Mr. Smith readily sees other math possibilities in movie making, as platforms like iMovie and Windows Movie Maker all require math computations to create products. A variety of new and old movie clips come to mind that use math concepts he must teach.

By now his mind is reeling with ideas. He knows a local videographer he can call on for ideas and collaboration. He will check with the art teacher to see if she would help with storyboarding. He scans the Internet for more ideas. He knows many of of his students like sports and he could get some mileage out of the idea of sports clips.

Mr. Smith decides to give it a go. He will design a comprehensive unit of work around mathematics and movies. Pixar in a Box will play a part, but he will also design other work that draws in other standards.

By the end of the unit, his students will create a class movie on the topic "Math and the Movies: A Vital Connection." They will answer a basic driving question: How are mathematics used in the world of movie making?

Mr. Smith opens a graphic organization program called Popplet and begins to plan out the various aspects of his design. That's how digital collaboration, engagement, and design come together to produce engaging schoolwork.

The Engagement People

In Support of Engagement

Disclosure: The sole purpose of this blog is to generate a conversation regarding engagement in the Comments section. Please read and give us your ideas.

On August 22, 2015, the Gallup Corporation and Phi Delta Kappa, a prestigious association of professional educators, released results of a new poll of American views on the public education system. Two findings stood out to us among many: First, "A strong majority (about eight in 10) of Americans believe how engaged students are with their classwork and their level of hope for the future are very important for measuring the effectiveness of the public schools in their community." Second, 97% of public school parents rated "improve teacher quality" as the top strategy for improving public schools from a list of five choices. No other strategy on the list garnered a rating higher than 80%.

In July of 2015, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released a report by Susan Headden and Sarah McKay entitled Motivation Matters: How New Research Can Help Teachers Boost Student Engagement.  In this report, they conclude that,  "It is increasingly clear that the public education system needs to address student motivation far more systematically than it does today."

In his latest book, Creative Schools, published in 2015, Sir Ken Robinson makes a strong case that the role of teachers is to "engage, inspire, and enthuse students by creating conditions in which those students will want to learn." Sir Ken's TED talks have ranged from 1.6 million views for "Changing Education Paradigms" to 35 million views for "Do Schools Kill Creativity?"

Apple released a free iBooks guideline for educators in June 2015 entitled Evaluating Apps for the Classroom. In this booklet, Apple suggests five guidelines for evaluating classroom digital apps: developmental appropriateness, instructional design, engagement and motivation, balance of interactive features, and accessibility.

In a 2013 book entitled OPEN: How we'll work, live and learn in the future by David Price, these important points appear: First, "We’re becoming increasingly dissatisfied, and consequently disengaged, from the way we learn in the formal space, when measured against the open learning we do in the social space." Second, "Engagement precedes learning: learning becomes an uphill struggle without deep absorption in a task, (what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls being ‘in the flow’ – unaware of time passing). Learning without engagement is likely to be superficial, temporary. Engaged learning has depth and ‘stickiness’."

On October 23, 2015, USA Today reported the results of a recent Yale University/Born This Way Foundation survey of 22,000 students. 26% of respondents reported they were bored in school. "Unless what they're learning is engaging and interesting, they're going to be bored — the boredom is related to the quality of instruction."

The New Media Consortium recently published the NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition asking the question, "What is on the five-year horizon for K-12 schools worldwide?" According to the report's Executive Summary, "The experts agreed on two long-term trends: rethinking how schools work in order to bolster student engagement and drive more innovation, as well as shifting to deeper learning approaches, such as project- and challenge-based learning."

Phil Schlechty has written eight books on the topic of engagement and is widely viewed as a leading authority in America on the topic of engagement in schoolwork. For 30 years, he has posited the idea that engagement should be the core business of schools.

With all this attention on engagement, we wonder why a stronger foothold has not occurred at the policymaking level to give engagement its rightful place in the focus of public schools. What does it take for national, state, and local policymakers to listen to important data like this and act?

Please give us your thoughts by commenting below.

The Engagement People

The Animated World of Plotagon

For the past three years, the Schlechty Center has helped educators embrace the connection between digital tools and engagement in an offering called Engaging the Net Generation. Some of the more popular tools we have explored in this session are those that allow students to create animated stories. The connection between Novelty and Variety and student engagement is powerful. Students find themselves writing complex stories, summarizing literature, and creating math tutorials—all the while engaged— because of the Novelty and Variety that animation leverages.

There are a number of apps and program that facilitate this connection. For tablets like an iPad, young children will engage with apps such as Sock Puppets, Puppet Pals, Tellagami, Morfo, and ChatterKid. Older students could move on to the PC- or Mac-based GoAnimate.

All these platforms work the same. The student creates a scene with animated characters and then adds a storyline by recording or typing script.

But each of these apps has its challenges. Sock Puppets is a wonderful app. But for the free app, your characters are limited to 30 seconds of storyline. Time can be increased to 90 seconds by buying the upgrade for a very reasonable $1.99 per student. Likewise, Tellagami requires that students buy the type-to-script feature. Tellagami also is limited to soliloquoys, or one-character animations. GoAnimate used to allow unlimited 30-second animations for free. No more. The best you can get is a 14-day free trial before students are asked to buy in. To be fair to GoAnimate, they do offer a complete GoAnimate for Schools package, which is a wonderful, powerful platform—if a school can afford it.

Enter Plotagon to the rescue. Plotagon is a superb animation platform. Here is why we like it so much:

• Plotagon is an app that can be downloaded to ANY device—PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, etc.
• Plotagon currently gives away a lot of features for free. Everything needed to create wonderful animations is available for free including a variety of characters and scenes. We have not run into any time restrictions.
• In Plotagon, students create script in a realistic script-writing mode. In other words, the finished text looks like any play script one might pick up and read.
• Control over character action and emotion is a very simple process that is executed from easy-to-use drop-down menus.
• Final animations are published on the web in individual accounts. They can also be recorded by screencasting. They can also be saved in the app and kept private without publishing. Animations can also be published to YouTube where they can be coded private or public.
• There is a Plotagon Education option. For $99 a year for 30 students, students get full access to a wide menu of characters and scenes. Plus, all animations can be stored in a private classroom account as opposed to on the web (which is standard on the free version).

In the spirit of full disclosure, Plotagon makes their money by selling extras—extra characters and scenes. We like this approach because a fully functioning platform is available for free including many different characters and scenes. Additional purchases are optional and not required to use the platform.

So what are the challenges with Plotagon? First, using Plotagon, even offline, does require an Internet account. That can be problematic for children under 13 or in districts that restrict students from creating online accounts. However, many districts work around this with appropriate disclosure and parent permission.

A second challenge in using the free version is students may see a library of public, published plays. As is always the case with the Internet, some of these aren’t suitable for student viewing. This potential for misuse could be minimized with a classroom culture of good digital citizenship.

Digital animation is a powerful classroom tool that educators should have in their toolboxes. Many Design Qualities can be addressed through the creation of animated stories including Novelty and Variety, Product Focus, Affiliation, and Authenticity. The resultant work and products can address a lot of learning standards.

Plotagon is an exceptional animation platform that can be accessed for free or purchased as an educational app for classrooms. We hope you give it a try!