Olivier Maissin, an Apple Destinguished Educator from Belgium, is a long time iStopMotion User.

In February 2007 he organized the first "Animation Movie Festival" at the Saint-Joseph school in Libramont, Belgium. It was a big success: 220 visitors, teachers, parents and students, were present for the screening of 27 animation movies all created with Boinx iStopMotion by kids aged 11-12.

Find out more and see some example films at http://istopmotion.com/articles/maissin/

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.
Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.
Scratch is available free of charge from http://scratch.mit.edu/download
To find more about the educational ideas underlying Scratch, visit http://scratch.mit.edu/pages/educators

If you need free Podsafe music for your Podcast head to http://music.podshow.com/
Top tip: To be able to download the mp3 tracks, you need to sign in and add the tracks to your play list first.
Remember to credit Podsafe Music Network in your Podcast.

Use EvoCam to publish a webcam with streaming video, view and record video from network cameras and video servers, create timelapse movies, or use it as part of your home security system with its configurable motion sensors - these are just a few of the things you can do with this easy-to-use yet incredibly powerful webcam software!


www.evological.com/evocam.html
Mac
$25 (£13) download

EyeSight software allows you to capture pictures with your iSight camera and uploads them to an FTP.

www.klieme.com/EyeSight.html

FREE or Donation

I took a group of pupils to the Kent ICT Conference.
They spent the day creating animations using the Mac mini and iStop-Motion software.
They received a lot of attention from the deligates at the event.
Listen to what they have to say in their Podcast.
www.sussex-road.kent.sch.uk/media/mp3/ictconference2007.mp3


For a video tutorial about how to subscribe to the Sussex Road School Year 6 Podcast, click here.

http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/index.php

Examples, contests and tutorials.

Check out this tutorial by Duncan Whitehurst - ICT Advisory Teacher.
It shows step by step instructions on how to use Digital Blue to film animations.
www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/plasticine_anim.pdf


Other tutorials and resources:

Making a simple movie using digital blue 2.
http://www.merthyr.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/89CA7531-B734-4AC3-9129-F06C63A5A3DF/0/digital_blue.pdf

You tube Digital Blue video tutorials (4 in total).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVZhmU7QNQY

Intro to Movie Maker 2.
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/moviemaker.pdf

More Movie Maker 2.
http://www.merthyr.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/17DCCAB1-8642-4582-A3EA-D08F836CDADB/0/HowtouseMovieMaker2.pdf

Newsfilm Online is planned to be one of the most exciting resources to be offered to Higher and Further Education in the UK. 3,000 hours of television news and cinema newsreels, taken from the huge collection of the ITN/Reuters archive, is to be made available online in high quality format for teaching, learning and research. Newsfilm Online will be a gateway of unmatched richness to nearly one hundred years of news, from the 1910s to the present day.

Currently 50 films are available, arranged in decade order.

http://newsfilm.bufvc.ac.uk/staticpages/index.php?page=about

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs).
You can easily record video tutorials of any Windows software.

The Downs FM Podcast must be world famous by now.
I listened to some of the VERY early Podcasts they did. They have become very polished over the past years and should prove to be an inspiration to anyone thinking of setting up a school Podcast.
Listen and learn! Very entertaining... except for the karaoke competitions...
www.downsfm.com/

Needing to take high quality close up photos for your digital project?

There is a guide on how to make yourself a 'light tent diffuser' out of a simple cardboard box on the Strobist blog:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html

Voice Candy is a fun and useful recorder for the Apple Mac.
It allows you to add fun effects to your recorded voice.
You get 8 different effects to play with. You can switch the effects while recording for some extra fun. For example, record a conversation between Darth Vader and chipmunk to produce something that just seems wrong.
This would be an ideal addition to your normal recording software to produce fun Podcasts with your pupils.

http://www.potionfactory.com/voicecandy/
Voice Candy requires
Mac OS X 10.4
G4 or faster processor
$12.95 (£6.90)

The Digital Blue Movie Creator 3 is now shipping. I have been given one to evaluate. Ahead of my review... I have put the DMC3 into the hands of a group of my children. They produced a Podcast to give their initial thoughts of the camera. The audio of the Podcast can be downloaded HERE.

The animated movement in Photo to Movie makes a fantastic difference to basic slide shows. The flexibility goes far beyond the Ken Burns technique.
(Mac and PC) www.lqgraphics.com $49 download (£26).

There is a gallery of different techniques on the website. I will be giving this a try soon.