In a recent post I asked for help in planning a three-part workshop for my staff on ways to use technology to support writing development. Soon I will write a post to share all of the great responses I received.  In the meantime, let me share one of them,  ZimmerTwins.com.

I first learned of it from Maggie Hos-McGrane who was using it with some of her students as a way to share their learning at the end of a unit.  I played around with it and wasn’t sure how that would work since the characters and settings are so limited. It is very easy to make a movie, but I thought it would be very challenging to create an educational cartoon.  However, I also knew that having only 3 characters and a limited number of settings to work with could also help keep the children focused. I decided to jump in and try it with students.

My assistant set up the free accounts for us. It is a tedious business to create a class set.  First you complete an online for for each student. Then you go to  your email and open each student’s message that contains their password. Since this was a password that the children wouldn’t remember, she next logged in as each child and changed the password to something that will be easier for them to remember.  If I were a homeroom teacher, I probably would have given each child their temporary password and then as a class gone in and had everyone change the password to match their Windows login.  As a specialist who only sees these children once per week for 40 minutes, my time is too limited to take the time to have the children do that.  I now have one class set of accounts that I use with all of my students.

Next I introduced ZimmerTwins.com to the students.  There is a short tutorial cartoon on the site that takes you through the process of creating an animation.  It is well done and the site is easy to use so students tended to have few or no questions after viewing the cartoon.

As was appropriate with a new tool, most children needed to play around with it, try some silly things before they could get down to creating their cartoon.  However, by the end of the first session many children had found their direction and their movies were beginning to take shape.  You can view a draft of a cartoon by clicking on the picture below.

Joe's movie in progress

The children found the activity engrossing.  The room was almost silent as they worked. As they left at the end of class they eagerly asked if they could keep working on their cartoons at home.

In this pilot, I have so far used it  for one class period with a third grade class, a fourth grade class and two fifth grade classes.  It was a real stretch for the third graders to tell a story that made sense and had a beginning, middle and an end.  Only the strongest writers were being very successful but all of them were enjoying the activity. I think they could be much more successful using this site to share something they have learned.

Fourth graders were more successful. They were working on creating educational science or social studies cartoons.  As is appropriate, their cartoons are more basic so far than the ones created by fifth graders.

I have used it with two fifth grade classes.  They are the most successful so far but at this point, many are lacking in educational content.  I am not worried.  I think by the end of the next class period most will be dramatically better.

Even though at this point most of their cartoons contain too many gratuitous  actions, such as fainting or teleporting, many students are starting to see the power of those same tools.  For example, a few students used teleporting to go back in time to teach a history lesson.

I told the children the cartoons could be funny as long as they taught us accurate information.  When I see how eagerly children watch each other’s cartoons-in-progress, I think that these little cartoons may indeed get used by next year’s teachers as one of the many tools they use to teach their content.

Equally importantly, I’d say this activity is at the top of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and fits neatly into our tech framework which is based on ISTE’s current NETS-S.  It is a higher order thinking task to use the limited characters, props and settings to teach real content.   The children are really working hard — and loving doing it.

A few details about the site.

• It is moderated. When students save a movie, it does not appear online until it has been viewed and approved.  One of my students logged in from home and posted something inappropriate. I was notified via email and also warned that the account would be closed if that behavior persisted.  The site clearly posts what is not allowed, such as swearing and violence.
• Members are able to rate the cartoons and leave comments.  I hadn’t even thought about that aspect of the site until my students started receiving comments. They haven’t seen them yet (except for one of my students who wrote her own comment, something along the lines of “Great movie! One of my favorites!”).  Next class period I will talk with them about that feature and we will arrive at guidelines for leaving comments.

• There is a Zimmer Twins TV show on qubo.  That is the origin of these characters. I’ve only found qubo mentioned in a few places on the site and it is mentioned once in the tutorial cartoon.  Other than that, there is no advertising.

• If you are in the US, there is a chance that your cartoon could be shown on the TV show.

• Beneath each cartoon is a collabowrite button that allows any member of the site to copy and edit someone else’s cartoon.  The original is left untouched.

• If students forget to login, they cannot save their cartoon.  Saved cartoons can be further edited by their creator at any time.

• The cartoons have a fairly short time limit which my students have gotten around by creating a part 2, part 3, etc.

So what do you think of this site. Do you see a place  in your curriculum for using the ZimmerTwins movie creator?  Please share your ideas.

[UPDATE on 6 April 2010 : ZimmerTwins just changed their model.  Now we are unable to continue editing after we save unless we become a paid subscriber.  Understandable, but very disappointing since this was such a motivating and engaging tool.]