RACINE, Wis. — Todd Reinke is a technology integration teacher for the Racine Unified School District.

He’s been spending several days over the past month teaching fifth graders across the district how to do animation using Google Slides.

What You Need To Know

  • Technology Integration teachers at Racine Unified Schools work to tie in technology students use to the subjects they're learning

  • In March, they worked to teach students animation using Google Slides

  • The goal was to get a cartoon bird to "fly" from one laptop to another, traveling across four screens

  • Teachers said it allows the students to be creative and can be used in any subject

There’s a specific goal the students must accomplish. 

“Each frame of the animation they create is its own little picture, but then they have to do a certain amount of frames per second to get the bird to go across the screen and make it look realistic,” Reinke said.

Students were divided into groups of four, and each had 25 slides to get the cartoon bird from one side to the other.

For one group, Kedwin Ortiz-Lopez’s screen is where the bird started.

“It was starting here, and I want it to end here,” Ortiz-Lopez said.

That’s where the second student will pick up the animation. Then it will continue down the line with the hope the animation will be a cohesive motion. 

Ortiz-Lopez learned it’s not as easy as it sounds. He moved the bird one too many spaces on each frame.

“The maximum was five, and I used six, so I’m going to have to start all over,” Ortiz-Lopez said. “I’m on page 16. It wasn’t able to, it was already close to the edge of the screen, and I’m supposed to do 25, and not 16.”

While this might seem like the students are just “playing,” Reinke and his colleague, Natalia Rasavong, said this skill can help in any sort of subject.

“It’s a way to express their creativity at the same time. The teachers will be able to see what the students are learning in a different way,” Rasavong said.

In about 45 minutes, each student was able to move the bird from their start and end points on their screen, set the proper speed for slides per second, and get their final product, as the bird appeared to fly from screen to screen.

Reinke said that is one of the best parts about teaching this. He said the students really learn a lot from it.

“I think the biggest thing they take away is learning can be fun, something like math can be fun, and it can bring different things to life,” Reinke said. “Technology can bring a whole new realm of discover to their education.”

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