I’m so happy that Go!Animate asked me if I was interested in creating videos when I was standing in front of their booth at the 2012 CSTD Conference. As they started to describe it and show me the functionality, I quickly started to realize that Go!Animate was similar to BitStrips, which I love (and so do my kids), except that instead of static cartoons, it creates animated ones. I created a quick basic one in less than 15 minutes (see my post).
Go!Animate provides characters, speech to text (you can record your own audio as well) and scenes that you can easily configure. With the free version you are limited to the characters and scenes, but even the free version lets you create something fun.
The quick tutorial was just what I needed to get started playing. My 9 year old daughter sat here and watched me test it out (read: play) and was quite jealous that I wouldn’t let her play (work) with it (although I’ve promised to let her go to it tomorrow).
What’s even cooler is that once you create your videos, Go!Animate hosts them and lets you embed the link in an email, your blog, or, yes, wait for it, even your LMS (yes they host it). And, for all of this, you pay one monthly fee regardless of whether 10 people or 10,000 access it. You don’t have to sign a binding long term contract and can go month to month. Can you tell I’m excited? This is a tool anyone can use and with more templates and characters coming (they told me if I needed some industry specific characters in white coats I could put in a request because they are adding new ones all the time).
I love that I can also easily tweet my video, or upload it to Facebook or YouTube. Given how much my kids love Bitstrips, I think I’ll be needing a work and play account.
Give it a try. Let me know what you think.