Digital Technologies this week introduced me to animation programmes such as Puppet Pals and iStop Motion. With a partner I created a story on iStop Motion based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears, to do this we had to draw our background, characters and many other props. Straight away I could tell that children within a classroom setting would love using animation programmes such as these ones, as they allow creativity and imagination to be used from the very start.
Movie Image Education states that there are five main types of animation – cut-out, stop motion, pixilation, drawn and computer. (Jarvis, 2015, p89) states that “Animation involves the stringing together a sequence of static images, generally so that they appear to move.” When first trying to create an animation myself and my partner realised that we were moving Goldilocks too quickly, this meant it didn’t look like a realistic walk, however we grasped quickly that time and effort needs to be spent on making an animation. In class I found it beneficial that we got the time to watch tutorials on all these different types of animations on the Moving Image Education website before we started making one ourselves. Animations can be used in many ways to enhance learning as it enhances learners visual representations, illustrates processes and also provides an interactive element (Bertrancourt, 2005). All of these aspects show how important it is that animation and ICT as a whole is used widely in schools, as (Beauchamp, 2012, p66) states that “ICT equipment is part of pupils everyday life, so should be part of their everyday play.”
As the use of technology within schools should be placed within a range of subjects and shouldn’t be seen as a separate subject, myself and my partner decided to do an animation which could fit into both Literacy and Technology Curriculum for Excellence outcomes.
I can explore and experiment with sketching, manually or digitally, to represent ideas in different learning contexts. – TCH 1-11a.
To show my understanding across different areas of learning, I can identify and consider the purpose and main ideas of a text. – LIT 1-16a.
These outcomes relate to the animation myself and my partner carried out as we told the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Therefore, children themselves could use an app such as iStop Motion within a Literacy lesson to show their understanding of a text by being able to put an animation together about it. I thoroughly enjoyed making all the different backgrounds and props needed, as the setting changed three times from the woods, to a kitchen and then a living room. Therefore, our animation didn’t always have the same background, from this I feel as though it made it look more interesting. We also incorporated three plastic bears into the story along with our drawing of goldilocks, as we wanted different eye-catching features involved to make it more intriguing. The different features on iStop Motion meant that we could slow down our animation so that people viewing it could see the words we added such as “Too hot!” when Goldilocks was trying the porridge. From this, I have realised that animation programmes allow for anything to be created; from something random, to a story being told with drawings or other props. This providing a great opportunity for children within a classroom to use their imagination to create something that they feel interested in.
Overall, this class has gave me the confidence to deliver lessons to children in the future using animation programmes such as iStop Motion. This being very beneficial, as hopefully my growing confidence and enthusiasm will mean the children I am teaching also feel this way towards technology. Along with developing confidence, I also found it very enjoyable creating an animation; this also being something I hope children get out of lessons that I teach using technology!
References:
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary Classroom: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson.
Jarvis, M. (2015) Brilliant Ideas for Using ICT in the Classroom: A Very Practical Guide for Teachers and Lecturers. Routledge.
Moving Image Education website: [Online] Available: https://movingimageeducation.org/create-films/animation [Accessed: 19 February 2018]
