Animations in Power Point & Google Presentations

My students have always enjoyed creating animations with Microsoft Power Point. They have terrific curriculum applications as well such as  explaining science concepts like cells dividing, or in language arts recreating a scene or new ending to a story, and in social studies recreating history. When I started doing animations five years ago, my first lesson was to have them animate the phases of the moon and effect on tide patterns.

I happened to see an animation done with Google Presentation also that is pretty incredible and will be trying that with my 7th graders soon. When I share this idea with other teachers, they always ask for the directions. Below are the nitty gritty directions and student examples for three versions of animations.(And I just discovered that Power Point 2010 allows you to save these as WMV files if you go to the Send/Share option under the File tab.)


Clip Art Animations:
1. Open Power Point and change your layout to a blank slide.
2. Add clip art in their beginning position.  
3. Insert a duplicate slide. There are a few ways to do this: Insert Slide/Duplicate Slide; Right click on the slide from your slide list on the left side of the screen; Click on the slide from your slide list on the left side of the screen and use Control D; or add the icon to your Quick Access Toolbar at the top of the page by right clicking on that toolbar.
4. Move the clip art slightly, using the arrow keys is a good way to do this
8. Repeat 7 & 8 multiple times to tell your story.
9. Set transition timing: animations tab/advance slide/automatically after 00:00.3/apply to all
10. Watch your animation




One Page Animations
Here is a video explaining it: 




Stick Figure Animations
1.Create your stick figure(s) using autoshapes (insert/shapes) (You can copy and paste lines)
2. Create double jointed arms and legs by using two lines
3. Group all lines together (highlight all, right click on the face/group/group)
4. Add a background and send it to the back
5. Insert a duplicate slide (see directions above) and move your person
6. Then double click on piece of the body you want to move and move that part
7. Repeat instructions five and six over and over
8. Set your transition timing so that it plays on its own (00:00.1 or .3)