I came across Anithings at a visit to BETT a few weeks ago. It is a fantastic piece of software which allows children to create their own animations on screen. They can design their own characters and backgrounds or use the ones provided. Recording the animation simply involves pressing the record button and then animating the characters by moving them around.

Here are some demonstrations of how to use the software. The first shows how to make a simple animation:

This video shows some of the more advanced features, such as drawing tools, storyboards and speech bubbles.

Any animations created using the software can be posted online and then embedded into school websites or VLEs.

UPDATE – This offer is now closed.

The team at Anithings have kindly offered visitors to Teaching Ideas and Teaching News a 10% discount on any orders of the software during February. To receive this discount, simple quote ‘Teaching Ideas‘ or ‘Teaching News‘ when you place the order. Schools and teachers using either of these codes will also receive a pack of 90 Anithings stickers featuring characters from the program… great for a display or as a reward for children who create amazing animations with the software!

UPDATE – This offer has now ended.

Don’t forget that our offer of an 8-week trial of Superclubs Plus is ending soon. This fantastic social networking site is a wonderful resource for children providing them with a safe place to communicate with others online.

Read more on our previous post, or simply register with the site at www.superclubsplus.com. This offer has now ended.

As featured on the Kent ICT blog recently, Sherston have an amazing deal which is only available until 30th November 2009.

They are offering over 100 of their best multi-award winning software titles for £1099. All titles come with full site licences so you can install them across your entire school networks. Visit TAG Learning to find out more and to take advantage of the offer.

If you work at a school in Kent in the UK, read the Kent ICT blog to find out how you can get this deal for £799 (but you have to order before 23rd October 2009).

UPDATE – This offer has now ended.

I have mentioned the wonderful site Superclubs Plus before on this blog and my own ‘MrWarner.com’ blog. The site, created by Intuitive Media is a social networking site for children, giving them access to email, forums, web site creation tools, competitions, surveys, ICT challenges, author interviews and much MUCH more… all within a safe moderated environment.

The children at my school have been using Superclubs Plus for many years and it is always incredibly popular. We use it reguarly to develop the children’s ICT skills and to support our work on Internet safety. If you haven’t tried it out with your primary pupils (aged from 6 to 11), then I highly recommend it.

If your children are too old for Superclubs Plus, why not try out Gold Star Cafe (suitable for ages 11 to 14). It’s just like Superclubs Plus, but has lots more ‘cool stuff’ for older pupils to enjoy.

Pencil Sharp Publishing has got in touch with me, to let me know about some of their new books. You can read more information about some of their range in the PDF here.

Teachers can obtain a free copy of one of the ‘Read Reads’ (for the cost of postage and packing) from Pencil Sharp by quoting the reference PSRR001.