RSA animation is essentially whiteboard animation. The artist draws pictures on a whiteboard to depict concepts using a combination of words and pictures. If you’ve never seen an RSA animation, I’d suggest watching “RSA Animate: Changing Educational Paradigms” by Ken Robinson.
I love the idea of representing complex concepts with images and words. To do this effectively, you have to really understand the information you are attempting to communicate visually.
While teachingRay Bradbury’s futuristic novel Fahrenheit 451, I wanted my students to examine why society shifted from reading books and valuing literature to burning books. There is a conversation in the book between two characters in which this shift is explained; however, there are many factors at play and students struggle to understand all of the reasons why society shifted.
In an interview about why he wrote Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury said, “I’ve tried not to predict, but to protect and to prevent.” If his mission was to protect books and the ideas in them and prevent people from burning books and devaluing literature, then it’s crucial that students understand why book burning (in the novel) became the norm.
I decided to have my students create RSA animation films to portray this shift. I knew creating a film would force them to analyze the text, evaluate the factors at play, and create!
Step 1: I asked students to do a close reading of the pages in the text where Captain Beatty explains why society changed.
In small groups, they took their annotations and created flowcharts on paper illustrating the different factors that led society from reading books to burning them. I also asked them to include direct quotes from the book to link each image to the text.
Step 2: After creating a flowchart, each group started a shared Google document and wrote a rough draft of a script detailing the transition from reading to burning books. Then one member of the group became the official writer for the group. It was the writer’s job to edit, refine and improve the script.
Step 3: In class while the writer was working on the script, the other members of the group began the actual RSA animation. One student was the artist and another student filmed the artist as he or she drew. The videos were captured using cell phones then saved in Google Drive.
Step 4: Once the script was complete, students uploaded the video into iMovie and selected “Modify” > “Fast Forward.” This allowed them to take a 10-15 minute video of the artist drawing and condense it into 2-3 minutes.
Step 5: Here’s the tricky part! Once the group knew how long the video would be, one group member had to record a reading of the script and attempt to match the events in the script with the scenes being depicted in the video. This took some practice. Then students then uploaded their audio and layered it on top of their video in iMovie.
Step 6: Each group published their RSA Animation video to one of their group member’s YouTube channel. Note: You can ask students to make the video “Public” so anyone online can view it (my preference) or they can post it as “Unlisted” which means only people with the link can find it.
Step 7: I used a Google Form to collect and organize the videos. Each group had to submit the Google Form below with their group’s information and the URL to their video. So all I had to do was open the spreadsheet where the information was stored and click on their URLs to quickly view the videos!
I love how creative yet challenging this assignment was for my students. They had to employ higher-order thinking to successfully accomplish each task required to create the video. It was fun watching them troubleshoot and bounce ideas around. While observing them, I found myself smiling. They are so incredibly creative and resourceful when they want to be! I know my students this year have a much better understanding of why Bradbury’s dystopian society destroyed books.
18 Responses
Nice blog post outlining the steps for teachers. Much appreciated. Was so hoping to be able examples from your students who had shared their animations. Any chance?
Sorry for the delay on this! I’ve just posted 3 examples. I included two which were actually done on paper since I only had two white boards for students to use.
Catlin
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Catlin- I learned how to do RSA-style animation videos from Paul Bogush’s blog:http://blogush.edublogs.org/2012/12/26/how-to-make-rsa-animate-style-videos-with-your-class/. You should check it out.
I did them last year with my 9th graders for Humanities 9 (Big History). Students to trace an object or commodity through history and explain its impact on our world today.
First, my team-teacher and I made one to serve as the entry event to the project. It is very rough, and has poor sound quality. (It’s fun to let the students critique and point out how they would do better!).
Here are two examples made by our students: Coffee and Sheep.
How Did Sheep Change the World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DuawNvCNRU
How Did Coffee Change the World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHiymj-WdvA&feature=youtu.be
Hi Scott,
Thank you for the link to Paul Bogush’s blog! I’ve actually seen it. It’s a great resource. It definitely takes teachers through a slower more methodical approach, which can be super helpful.
I love the examples! Thank you for sharing those!
Take care.
Catlin
By the way, I love how you use Google Forms to collect student assignments. I find myself doing that all the time, even though we have an LMS that we are required to use at my school called Echo. Every time the kids do any presentation, they first submit their work in a Google Form. That allows me to sort it however I want, and not have to waste precious class time going through the LMS or having kids log in to different accounts to access their work.
Love it. I’m a diversity facilitator and would love to try it with a group of adults…
How long did the whole process take for the videos to be completed? Was it a one day thing or…?
We’re trying out collaborative video editing with WeVideo. Each group is making an RSA-style animation. They are writing a script, then they will film it, speed up the film, then record the audio to match the narration, and collaboratively edit it using WeVideo. I’m excited about the WeVideo aspect because they will be able to edit the video online and collaborate, which students can’t do with any other video editing software that I know of. We’re piloting WeVideo edu, and I’m eager to see how it works out.
The major drawback of most video group projects is that one kid ends up doing all the editing. I’m eager to see if WeVideo is like Google Docs for video.
Thanks for the recommendation, Scott! I didn’t realize multiple people could edit a shared WeVideo. Thank you for the comment. I will check it out.
Catlin
Scott, how did WeVideo work out for your students last year? Were they all able to edit just like in Google Slides/Docs? If so, do you know if WeVideo is free and if these features are available in the free version? Thanks!
[…] RSA animation is essentially whiteboard animation. The artist draws pictures on a whiteboard to depict concepts using a combination of words and pictures. If you've never seen an RSA animation, I'd suggest watching "Changing Educational Paradigms" which took a section of Ken Robinson's TED Talk and […]
[…] RSA animation is essentially whiteboard animation. The artist draws pictures on a whiteboard to depict concepts using a combination of words and pictures. […]
[…] my students create everything from digital stories to digital portfolios to RSA animation, I also included “Creative Design” and “Academic Engagement” categories to […]
[…] Drive Higher-Order Thinking with RSA Animation. RSA animation is essentially whiteboard animation. The artist draws pictures on a whiteboard to depict concepts using a combination of words and pictures. If you’ve never seen an RSA animation, I’d suggest watching “Changing Educational Paradigms” which took a section of Ken Robinson’s TED Talk and animated it using this technique. […]
[…] students were about to start an RSA animation project focused on a genocide of their choice. I was preparing a Google Document with an explanation of […]
Changing Educational Paradigms is such a great example of a whiteboard animation.
Whiteboard animation is the attractive way to represent your script!! Very useful website for all student keep it up guys all videos are awesome
Hello Catlin,
Thank you for sharing this is quality information, Unfortunately, as everyone is using whiteboard videos – it is tougher to stand out these days