Support for teachers wishing to get involved in computer animation early on came from a variety of different sources:

Bell Labs
Many of the Bell Labs computer animated films were in collabouration with visitors
MIT Education Research Centre (ERC)
Judah Schwartz and Harry Schey at ERC early on explored the production of simple computer generated films that could be used in a range of scenarios. An example was a set of 10 short films, each 2-3 minutes in length and marketed by Harper & Row (some titles were Ellipse, Hyperbola, Parabola, Eccentricity, Mean Value, Sin x/x, Taylor's Series Expansion, Newton's Method). The films were defined by ERC and generated by Joseph Kaye and Co of Boston. The quality of films they produced was quite exceptional at the time and demonstrated the potential of computer animation. The films were very simple with little in the way of titles, yet clearly put over the point to be made.
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (PIB)
PIB provided an SC4020 service to other US universities (University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins etc). Frank Sarno also provided an impressive course in computer animation that introduced the main software They were also introduced to the SC4020, SC4060, FR80 and BETA90 as well as CALCOMP type plotters. Techniques such as hidden line removal, projections, holograms, contours digitising were all discussed. The major pitfalls were discussed:
  • Trap of triviality: producing films with no real purpose in mind
  • Animating the textbook: reproducing a piece of existing teaching without considering the potential of the new media.
  • Too much text: only add essential text.
  • Rediscovering the wheel: not looking for new fields but repeating already filmed techniques.
  • You ain't seen nothing yet: allowing sequences to go on much too long.
UAIDE
Between 1962 and 1973 the Stromberg-Carlson User Group organised an annual conference for the Users of Automatic Information and Display Equipment (UAIDE) which each year had sessions on Computer Animation. In the late 1960s there was of the order of 10 animation papers per conference. Many of the leading languages (SCORS, BEFLIX, CAFE, CAMP/CAMPER, SOLIDS, POLYGRAPHICS, GROATS, EXPLOR, SPROGS) were introduced at UAIDE. Many of the major computer animators attended UAIDE conferences (Zajac, Knowlton, Sarno, Yarbrough, Honey, Cornell, Whitney, Sarno, Weiner, Anderson, Max, Baecker, etc) and presented papers.

Bob Hopgood presenting Chance and Thermal Equilibrium, UAIDE, San Diego, 1969 ( ?, Richard Philips, ?, Francis Honey, ?, Nelson Max). Audience: (left of UAIDE sign), Wade Shaw

Atlas Computer Laboratory (ACL)
Although ACL had access to the Aldermaston SC4020 early on, it was not until 1968 when ACL's own SC4020 arrived that computer animation really was used and supported. Most university users used the SCFOR (Fortran) and GROATS (Algol) programs initially to produce computer animations in their scientific and engineering research. Later POLYGRAPHICS, CAMP/CAMPER and SPROGS were also supported.
Peter Groves (Chemistry), Chris Eilbech (Solitons and Bions), Judah Schwartz (Physics) all produced educational films. ACL's Paul Nelson made a show reel of animation generated each year.
Colin Emmett and Alan Kitching developed the ANTICS system and produced the Finite Elements educational film.
A major project was the Nuffield Foundation's Science Teaching Project for which Jon Ogborn, Paul Black and Bob Hopgood produced a set of six films (using GROATS) for Unit 9 (Change and Chance) which was to make the ideas behind the Second Law of Thermodynamics intelligible to students at school.
ACL also worked closely with the BBC and Open University to ensure that the ambitious requirements of their new Open University Mathematics Course on the BBC with substantial use of computer animation could be achieved.
BBC/Open University
Tony Pritchett and Jeffrey Lickess produced the complete series of animations for the new OU Mathematics Course. The requirement was 10 to 25 minutes of quite simple animation per week. Initially Jeffrey Lickess was a Brunel University student spending a year of his degree Course at ACL. He switched to being an OU Research Student.
Joseph Kaye and Co
The original 16mm and 35mm cameras provided by Stromberg-Carlson were not pin-registered. Sherrill Martin of Joseph. Kaye & Co provided a service by bringing a pin-registered Bell & Howell or Flight Dynamics 35mm camera to their site when a film master was required. MIT and several other sites were customers.