STEM... Assessment... 21st Century Skills... Standards... Engagement... Inquiry.... Arrggh, my head is spinning!!! The words in the title of this article – and many more – are swirling around the education system today, inundating us with pressure around more, more, more and faster, faster, faster! Unfortunately, sometimes this can be ...

Over the last 6 months we have released SAM Animation v1.4, then v.1.4.1 and it’s certainly likely we’ll push out v1.5 in early 2012 … so why all the releases and why can’t we just do one big one to cover all new features and fixes? Well, in reflecting on ...

Today the world is talking about the death of the creative genius, Steve Jobs. He was a remarkable man who changed how people viewed technology and in doing so he changed the world. To pay tribute to him I wanted to post this wonderful stop motion animation I stumbled across ...

With the TES Special Needs show around the corner, where HUE Animation will have a stand, I wanted to write a bit about how animation can be really positive and a great teaching aid for children with special needs. Many special educational needs schools already use animation as a method ...

A reflective piece on slowmation by Brian Gravel, iCreate's resident professor and Director of the STEM Education program at Tufts. Good friends of the SAM Animation development team in Australia have been helping us think about how to use animation in different ways and in different contexts. In an effort ...

One of the initiatives we have at iCreate is figuring out how we can better facilitate teachers sharing the creative lessons and resources they have implemented. While at iCreate we are focused specifically on how teachers use stop-motion animation in their classrooms and ways we can share that with other ...

Thanks to a lovely reader, we have been mentioned in the What You Like section in The Guardian Weekend Magazine. It's great to see people talking about HUE Animation Studio and I hope this inspires some young animators out there. You can see the full article here. "From a stop-motion ...

There have been several debates stemming (even more so than usual) over the last several weeks around bringing technology into the classroom, mostly ignited by a New York Times article released earlier this month regarding stagnant test scores at an Arizona School District after millions were invested in technology. And ...

HUE Animation will be at TES Special Needs London on Friday 14th and Saturday 15th October at the Business Design Centre, London. Please come and visit our stand! ...

I found this great in-depth review about HUE Animation from a blog that knows its stuff when talking young animators: Animation Software For Kids. The best bits: "Overall, we feel that the HUE Animation Studio is one of the best stop motion animation softwares for kids available on the market, ...

An Aardman animation has made the Guinness Book of Records for having the smallest character ever in a stop motion animation. The film features a tiny girl called Dot who is 9mm tall, on a mini journey running over things such as the top of pins, 2p coins and the ...

You might be thinking it is far too early to talk about Christmas but with there being only 100 days to go and seeing that Hamley's announced its predictions for top toys for Christmas in June, I don't think it does any harm to start thinking about what presents you ...

People have often asked me "why did you start iCreate" or "how did you get this idea?" or "you're not a teacher, you're an engineer, where's the connection?"  To be honest, I can answer all of those questions with 2 words: Invention Kitchen The picture is a scaled model of ...

Rugby World Cup 2011 in Lego! I have found a brilliant stop animation film to celebrate the first day of the Rugby World Cup 2011. A 17 year old student from Scotland called Graham Love has used stop animation to make a film featuring Lego characters performing tackles, scrums and ...

As we launch into a new school year, one of the biggest challenges that educators may face is establishing a baseline of what students know and remember. What is already generally understood, which student(s) need a bit more support, and what are the major misconceptions to be addressed right away? ...

(by Anne McTighe)After trying SAM Animation, I am completely hooked. I started learning about iCreate to Educate and SAM Animation about a year and a half ago. As I played with the program, I was blown away by how much fun I could have making a silly little Happy Birthday ...

As the saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun. Working with Melissa Pickering and iCreate to Educate for the past two months has brought that idiom to life. For the past eight weeks, there has never been a dull moment, which has made it an extremely exciting work environment ...

We were recently contacted by the Polaris at Ebert school in Denver, CO who has been using stop-motion animation in their classrooms for a few years, and just last year began using SAM Animation. They spent an incredible amount of time pulling together a video that captures the students in ...

Have you ever wanted your students to try out an idea for an animation without taking pictures? Without the computer? A practice run of sorts? I have had this idea before but I have never tried it with students until this week. I wanted to have them practice using the ...

Melissa and I are at the Science Centre in Singapore doing SAM Animation workshops with staff members and teachers from primary and secondary schools here in Singapore. Yesterday was the first day of sessions, and both Centre staff and teachers made movies of processes and cycles. Here is a movie ...