Third graders used our class set of styluses, the ipads, and an animation app called Doink to create these amazing animations. They drew their original alien in four running poses (download my handout here) using the onion skinning technique then animated their drawing sequence across the stage in a composition entering left and exiting right. This was then exported as a quicktime movie and emailed to me to gather. Take a look at all the drawing steps and learning that happened along the way.
I collected the first group of aliens from 3-3 and made them into this movie below. 
3-1 was very rushed at the end trying to get them turned in before class ended and the ipads had to be returned. But they still made some adorable animations. See below.
3-2 finished their alien animations on Wednesday. Take a look at Aliens on the Loose! below
3-4 had some visiting art teacher superheroes from SD 46 come to the rescue. It took all 7 art teachers to help this group (far behind on the project) finish the last two drawings and go through all the other necessary steps for animating, converting, and emailing their pieces in to me. Thank you! Watch their Alien Race below.
Below is a tutorial that shows the drawing steps for creating the effect of running as well as the composition steps that make the running alien come in from the left of screen and exit right.
Thank you Doink for featuring this project on your Doink Blog!
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The long awaited Alien Animation lesson is finally here!
Back in November I wrote a grant (and received it) for a class set of ipad drawing styluses and 100 copies of the super cool ipad animation app Doink.
After a few set backs with installation, volume purchasing, ipad availability, and a black out that messed up ipad imaging...we've arrived. 
Thank you Mrs. Breaux for all your hard work behind the scenes.

Today the third graders explored the tools, styluses, and drawing techniques required to make our alien look like he (or she) is running.
Update: The folks over at Doink saw our post and posted on their blog about us! See it here.
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My fifth graders did it! Teaching art projects on iPads is unchartered territory for me so every success is a huge piece of news for Dryden's art program. The latest success is an all grade-level collaborative animation project on the iPads using the technique of rotoscoping.
Here is my first blog post stating my plan for this rotoscoping lesson.
Here is the blog post showing our movie that we planned to animate.
Here is the blog post showing the amazing thing that happened when we began this project.
Here is our final movie below:
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I grabbed my video camera to show you this AMAZING occurrence in the art room. When students learned how to rotoscope on the ipad this is what it looked (and sounded) like.
Years ago we tried a rotoscope project with a very motivated small group of third graders. They created an animation, divided it up into still frames, drew a contour line drawings over each frame, and deleted the photos. We used FLASH software and the interactive board to draw. The process took 3 months of 15 minute recesses. But the results are amazing!! It's hard to believe that 8 / 9 year olds made the rotoscoped video below:
UPDATE!!! 
Today a bunch of images were finished and turned in to me via email. I started sequencing them and saw the animation forming. Here is our sneak peak of what's to come! Isn't this going to be cool? If it isn's animating for you below, than use this link to view it online
at gifninja.com
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Simon's Cat 12/13/2011
 
To lighten things up during our last week of school before break I've been introducing my students to the wonderful animations of Simon Tofield. He is the animator of Simon's Cats.
Here are two videos I plan on showing:
Simon's Cat in Santa Claws: 
http://www.simonscat.com/Films/Santa-Claws/
And Simon Draws Simon's cat: 
http://www.simonscat.com/Blog/2011-11-21/Simon-Draws-Simons-Cat/
When I was searching around Simon's website: http://www.simonscat.com 
I found that he has a bunch of great apps available. I downloaded the free one to play with my students today. Take a look below:
Unable to display content. Adobe Flash is required.
When students completed their drawings, they used the iPods to photograph send to me.
I uploaded their work to Artsonia already! Take a look here.
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Thanks Ryan (one of my fifth graders) for showing me this animation site. After about one minute of drawing I was able to make this Little Dancing Holiday Monster! Go here to make yours!http://onemorelevel.com/game/draw_your_own_cartoon
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I've been working on an animation for the past 2 months. The images are created using the Brushes app, exported, and then animated using Keynote. The audio was composed on a midi keyboard with my voice over narration. The hope is to embed this video into an animated children's book called, The Snow Flurry Fairy. I'm looking into how to create the ePub file. Any suggestions?
Meanwhile, here is the first animation that will be included, In the Darkest Time of Night.
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This little animation was created on the iPad. There are SO many possibilities!
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