Three Ways to Create Stop-motion Videos

Creating stop-motion and time-lapse videos can be a good way for students to tell a story that they have developed. Stop-motion and time-lapse videos can also be helpful when teachers are trying to help students see how a lengthy process like osmosis works. The following free tools make it relatively easy to create stop-motion and time-lapse videos.

Parapara Animation is a free animation creation tool developed and hosted by Mozilla. The tool is easy to use and it does not require registration in order to use it. To get started simply visit the Parapara Animation website, select a digital crayon, then start drawing. Click the large "+" icon in the top of the screen to add a new frame to your animation. You can playback your frames at any time in the creation process. When you're done making your animation it will be assigned a unique URL that can be shared via email. A QR code for your animation will also be generated for you.

JellyCam. JellyCam is a free program (available for Mac and Windows) for creating stop motion movies. In the video below I demonstrate how to use JellyCam to create a simple stop motion movie.


JellyCam uses the Adobe Air platform. If you don't have Adobe Air Runtime it takes just a couple of minutes to install.

OSnap is an iPad app (available in a free version and in a paid version) that you can use to create stop motion and time lapse videos. The app is quite easy to use. To create a video with the OSnap app you simply need to start a project and take a series of still pictures using your iPad’s camera. Then adjust the number of frame per second to edit your video. If you want to, you can add a sound track to your video by selecting audio files that are stored on your iPad. You can go back and edit your videos by removing images and from the project at any time. Completed projects can be stored on your iPad, uploaded to YouTube, or shared via email.

Reading Rockets Provides Students With Daily Reading Tips

Reading Rockets Reading Tip of the Day widget does exactly what its name implies, it provides daily reading tips. The widget can be installed in your blog or website.


Applications for Education
The Reading Tip of the Day widget could be a good addition to your school blog or website. The widget provides a tips that parents can reinforce with their children at home.

Two New Google Calendar Features Help You Schedule Meetings

Google Calendar's web interface got a helpful update this week. It now includes the same "smart scheduling" features for rooms and times that the Google Calendar Android and iOS apps provide. This means that Google Calendar in your web browser will now suggest a meeting room for you based on the rooms that you have previously used.

The other new feature is a "find a time" tab in Google Calendar. This feature will show you the timezones that your Calendar event guests live in.

It is important to note that these features are available to G Suite users and may take a few days to appear in your G Suite account.

Applications for Education
The room suggestion feature could be helpful when you need to find a meeting place within your school. The "find a time" feature might be helpful if you are trying to connect classrooms for a Skype or Google Hangout meeting.

Create Audio Recordings and Save Them In Google Drive

TwistedWave is an audio recording and editing tool that is included in Next Vista's list of recommended tools. Through TwistedWave you can create and edit spoken audio recordings from scratch. Your completed tracks can be exported to Google Drive and SoundCloud.

If you have existing audio tracks in your SoundCloud or Google Drive account you can also import it into TwistedWave to edit those audio tracks.

TwistedWave's audio editing tools include options for fade-in, fade-out, looping, sound normalization, and pitch adjustments. The editor also includes the typical track clipping tools that you would expect to see in an audio editing tool.

You will have to create a free TwistedWave account in order to create and or edit a track of more than thirty seconds in length.

Applications for Education
TwistedWave could be a good audio track creation and editing tool for students and teachers that are using Chromebooks. The integration with Google Drive makes it easy for students to save their works and share their recordings with their teachers.