I have always been a giant fan of stop motion animation. As a child I grew up on "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "The Year Without a Santa Claus". In more recent years I have enjoyed "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "Fantastic Mr. Fox", and "Kubo and the Two Strings". As much as I enjoy watching stop motion movies, it can also be fun to create your own. With technology there are many programs and apps to make the process much easier, so that anyone can make a stop motion animation. One easy tool to use for this is Google Slides. Many times we think of Slides as just a program for creating multimedia presentations. However, with just a few tricks you and your students can actually use Google Slides to make stop motion movies. This can be a creative and fun way to: Tell a new story Retell a story read in class Reenact a historical event Demonstrate a scientific concept Explain how to solve a math problem Define a vocabulary term And much more See below for examples of stop motion animations with Google Slides, as well as detailed directions on how to make your own. Session Resources Slideshow - Google Slides link Session Agenda - Google Doc link Stop Motion Examples For this blog post, I created two examples of animation with Google Slides. One uses the more traditional approach of combining photographs, while the other uses shapes and text. Example #1 - Vocabulary Term: "Identical" For my first example I used stop motion to define a vocabulary term, in this case the word "identical". To do this I used Lego's to act out a scene (my own "Lego Movie"!). You can view the final product by clicking below: Vocabulary Term: Identical - Google Slides link Example #2 - Area of an Irregular Shape For my second example I animated shapes and text and teach how to calculate the area of an irregular shape. No traditional photographs were used for this example. To see the animation, click the link below: Area of an Irregular Shape - Google Slides link Overview Below are the basic steps for creating your own Google Slides stop motion animation. We will look at most of the steps in more detail further down in the blog post. Create your Google Slideshow as normal. As needed, insert images by taking a snapshot with your webcam. As needed, insert shapes, text, and other items. To save time, make copies of slides and make small changes to the items on the slide to simulate movement. To make certain slides last longer, make multiple copies of the slide. When done, use "Publish to the web" option to get playable link for your slideshow. Adjust the "Publish to the web" link to shorten the time between the slides to make them appear animated. Share the link with others to view! If you are not familiar with the basics of using Google Slides, you can learn more with the help guide below: Using Google Slides - Google Document link Inserting Images If you want to go with the traditional approach for stop motion animation, you will want to insert photos into your slideshow. Certainly these images can be taken with digital cameras, phones or such, but you can save a lot of time by simply using a webcam built into or connected to your laptop, Chromebook, or computer. Google Slides has a handy option that lets you insert images directly from your webcam. Click "Insert" in the top menu bar. Choose "Image" from the drop-down menu. Then choose "Camera". Click the camera button when ready, and then click "Insert" to insert the photo into the current slide. As needed, you can resize the photo to fill the slide. In between photos, you will now want to make small changes to your scene. This could include moving your lego characters, clay models, action figures, or such. If needed, you can also move your webcam to zoom in, zoom out, or move around the scene. Keep repeating this process to make all the slides you need to make your movie. For my lego movie I used the Ipevo Point 2 View camera. It is a very affordable USB camera than can be connected to laptops, Chromebooks, and computers, and is easy to adjust the height and angle. Of course you can just use a built-in webcam as well, but an external camera can make movement a bit easier. Inserting Other Items Instead of using photos, you can also create stop motion animations by simply inserting and moving clipart, shapes, text boxes, and such. Or you can combine these items with your photos by inserting them on top of your pictures. Insert items by clicking the "Insert" menu then choosing "Shape", "Textbox", "Line", "Wordart", or such. When done, make a copy of the slide by clicking "Slide" then "Duplicate slide". Now click on the items you inserted and make small changes to them to make it look like they have moved between slides. This could include moving the item, rotating the items, or resizing the item to make it bigger or smaller. Tech Tip: To move items you can simply drag and drop, but if you want more precise control use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move in small steps, or hold down the "Shift" keys while pressing the arrow keys to move one pixel at a time. Tech Tip: You can rotate items by dragging the circle that sticks out from the top of the item, but if you want more precise control you can press "Alt" and the arrows keys to rotate 15 degrees at a time, or "Shift" and "Alt" and the arrow keys to move 1 degree at a time. Keep repeating this process to make all the slides you need for your animation. Making Slides Last Longer When your slideshow runs, each slide will last the same amount of time. However, sometimes you may want your movie to linger on a certain scene for a longer time. Although you can't make a specific slide last longer, you can make it look like it does. The way to do this is to make multiple copies of the slide, without making any changes to it, so it looks like the scene is lasting longer. Select the slide you want to last longer. Make a copy of the slide by clicking "Slide" and "Duplicate slide" or copy and paste the slide. Repeat this multiple times to make 5 or 10 copies of the slide (for example). Later when the slideshow runs, it will look like the movie has paused on this slide for longer. Publish to the Web When you are done creating your stop motion animation, you now need to get a special link for people to view it. Instead of simply sharing your slideshow, you will want to use the "Publish to the Web" option. This will allow the slideshow to open full screen and start automatically. Click "File" in the top menu bar. Choose "Publish to the web" from the drop-down menu. This will open the "Publish to the web" window. Check the box for "Start slideshow as soon as the player loads". Also check the box for "Restart the slideshow after the last slide". Now click the "Publish" button and click "OK". Finally copy the link provided for the published slideshow. Speed up the Slideshow By default the "Publish to the web" link will open the slideshow fullscreen and start it playing with each slide advancing every 3 seconds. That sounds quick, but it is way too long to give the illusion of animation. To make the stop motion animation look like it is moving quickly, you need to edit the link to reduce the delay between each slide. When you look at the "Publish to the web" link, you will see the following at the very end: &delayms=3000 This tells the slideshow how many milliseconds to wait in between each slides. There are 1,000 milliseconds in 1 second, so the default of 3,000 means there is a 3 second delay before moving to the next slide. You can speed up the slideshow by making this number smaller. For example, if you change the value to 250 that would be 250 milliseconds, or one-fourth of a second. This would mean there would be four slides displayed per second, which would be much faster and give the illusion of animation. &delayms=250 You will need to experiment with different values to find the best speed for your slideshow to produced the desired effect. Share the Link Now that you have edited the "Publish to the web" link to make your slideshow move much faster, you are ready to share that link with others. Anyone who clicks the link will be able to view your stop motion animation movie. You can share the link in many ways: Put the link on your website Post it on social media Email the link to others Put the link inside a Google Document Make a QR Code or shortened URL Bonus If you want to go one step more, another option is to make a video out of your final stop motion animation using a screen capture tool such as Screencastify. See my earlier blog post for ideas on how to do that here: 7 Super Screencasting Activities for School - Blog Post link Conclusion We are always looking for creative ways for students to share their ideas and express their understanding. Stop motion animation can be one more fun option for a student learning product. With Google Slides it can be an easy process for students who enjoy telling a story one frame at a time! If you have any examples of student-created or teacher-created animations with Google Slides, feel free to share in the comments below. Post by Eric Curts. Bring me to your school, organization, or conference with over 50 PD sessions to choose from. Connect with me on Twitter at twitter.com/ericcurts and on Google+ at plus.google.com/+EricCurts1