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Animated GIF Stickers



I have been using GIF's for awhile to provide fun feedback to students but I never thought of putting them into a "sticker" format before. 

The idea was presented in a session I attended recently at GaETC21 (Georgia EdTech Conference 2021) and I LOVED it. 

The conference session was presented by Meredith White a high school Spanish teacher from Georgia. She got the idea and template from Ester Park and ran with it sharing how she used her stickers with students to provide engaging feedback. 

Ms. Park provides a video overview of the process and I created my own video, just in case her video ever went down, and to share more specific details with teachers in my district. 


In all my samples I used Ms. Park's sticker template. If you wanted to change it up they seem pretty simple to make. It looks like she did her wording in another program and inserted them as a picture but I used Google fonts with Google Word Art for the most part in my sample above. 

I've stepped out the process below for creating the stickers. It seems complicated but really isn't once you do the first couple.

1. Open, or create, a template in Google Slides. Here is the link to Ms. Park's template

2. Make a short video of what you want in the sticker. Use a neutral background. I have used a white wall and a green screen background both work. To film I used my computer camera and I have also used my cell phone camera.

3. Upload the video to unscreen.com to remove the background. It is a FREE site! Download the finished video to your computer.

4. Insert the video into the sticker template and use the cropping and masking tools to get it to fit the way you want (watching the video may help if you are not familiar with masking to a shape). 

5. Once you have your sticker made you will need to use some screencasting software, that allows you to save as a GIF. You will film a short loop of the sticker on Google Slides. I use, and love Screencast-O-Matic. The free version gives you 15 minutes of recording time, you can select the area you want to record, and save your finished video as a GIF. 

6. You will then take your GIF and upload it to Luna Pics (FREE site) where you will use their circle crop tool to finish your sticker (I would recommend watching the video for that step). 

I would recommend making a bunch at a time since it isn't really convenient to make them as needed. Mine are saved in a "GIF Button" folder in "My Picture" file. I have a series of "positive" and "needs improvement" stickers to pull from when needed. 

If you want curved font in your sticker. You can use the site PicFont (FREE). Check out this graphic from Tony Vincent on how to use the site to curve your font.


If you make some fun GIF stickers I would LOVE to see them. Feel free to comment or tag me on Twitter @atechcoachlife.

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