I love GIFs. Students love GIFs. Do you love GIFs? If you aren't familiar, GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. It is an image file that supports both animated and static images. Here is an example of an emoji GIF I created using the Emoji Me app:
Back in September I wrote the post Student Friendly GIFs for the Classroom and mentioned how students could use the safe search, Gifs4Kids, to find animated GIFs to add to their Google Slides/PowerPoint presentations, Google Docs, PicCollages, Padlet notes, LMS posts, blogs/websites and other projects. Lots of platforms support GIFs! Below is just one example of how a student can use GIFs for academic purposes. Here the user is dragging a GIF into a Google Slides presentation to make their vocabulary word come to life. Create a digital book of words!
Student & Teacher Created GIFs
What if students and teachers took it to the next level and created their own GIFs? It's EASY to do! There are so many tools available now that have the option to export animations as GIFs. Students and teachers can now transform their animations, stop motion videos, images and video clips into GIFs to share with others. Here are 10 of my favorites along with academic applications...
The GIF creator, andthenIwaslike.co is such an EASY tool to use! I have mentioned this one before in these two blog posts: 10 Ways to Spark Excitement for Read Alouds & Student Friendly GIFs for the Classroom.
Example:
Sally James' third & fourth grade classes used Google Slides to write about how they feel about Spring Break and added GIFs they created in andtheniwaslike.co. Here was Sally's adorable example:
Example for teacher use:
Piskelapp.com is a fun one for Chrome, Firefox and Edge browsers that allows users to create animated sprites and pixel art.
Example:
Evaporation
If you haven't tried Brush.Ninja then you definitely need to check this one out! I learned about this website from THIS post written by Richard Byrne. It's a GOOD one and I love the simplicity!
Example:
ABCya Animate is a great way for kids to make animations on the web that has the option to export creations as GIFs.
Example:
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| Students were studying magnets and created animations of items their magnet would attract. |
Tall Tweets will turn any Google Slides presentation into a GIF. Eric Curts wrote THIS blog post about how students can create animations in Google Slides by duplicating slides and slowly making small changes to each slide. Tall Tweets connects to the user's Google Drive and combines all of the slides in the presentation you select and turns it into a GIF that can be tweeted or saved to your computer.
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| Push & Pull GIF: Stick around for awhile if you want to see him PULLš |
Example:
Example:
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| Read more about this Moon Phases GIF Project HERE |
Are you familiar with stop motion videos? If not, check out the following blog post I wrote: Tools and Tips for Creating Amazing Stop Motion Videos in the Classroom. The free app, Stop Motion Studio, will allow users to export their videos as GIFs.
Example:
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| The printables for this matter stop motion activity came from Erintegration's TpT Store. It's SO fun! |
The free PicsArt GIF & Sticker Maker app is so easy to use and the possibilities for classroom use are endless! This one stands out from other apps because you can add stickers, text and other cool effects to your videos.
Example:
The PicsArt Animator app has lots of options! You can design your own animation, become an emoji, bring pictures to life, draw cartoons and so much more.
Example:
Butterfly Lifecycle
GIF Toaster is an app I use all of the time. Take any video clip and turn it into a GIF in seconds! Students can create GIFs that could be added to the PicCollage app that supports GIFs. I got the idea of creating a Verb poster in Piccollage from Goodwinnovate's post HERE. She used the Lively app to turn live photos into GIFs. Similarly, you can do the same thing with GIF Toaster but instead turn videos into GIFs. You can see in the GIF below that I took a video of kids jumping up and down and turned it into a GIF to insert into PicCollage. PicCollage will export as a video but you can run it through GIF Toaster to turn the entire canvas into a GIF.
Example:
How else could GIFs be used in the classroom? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below!
