“Animation ‘breathes life into something that wouldn’t normally move’. This could be a drawing, a puppet or an object – even a brick can be brought to life.Animation is created when you film one still image of your subject, change it a bit, film another still image, change it again and so on until you build up a sequence of still images. And when it’s played back, it appears to move.” (Moving Image Education, 2016)

In this weeks class we had a look at animation and its possibilities in the classroom. Moving Image Education (2016) describes animation as being portrayed in 5 categories: cutout, stop-motion model, pixillation, drawn and computer. More in-depth information about these categories can be found here-https://movingimageeducation.org/create-films/animation

Firstly, we had a tinker with the iStopMotion app. We had to use a bendy figure to create a short animation, involving movement and the use of our imagination! I enjoyed this activity and quickly realised that it could be a time-consuming task, with the need for patience and appropriate knowledge of how to use the app efficiently. iStopMovie is an app that allows the creation of an animation with limitless possibilities. I feel that children would enjoy this activity and would be able to produce something in which they are proud of and value. This type of activity could allow children to work independently or collaboratively, the children could give each other certain roles- researcher, story maker, director etc.

I decided to make my bendy figure write their name on my book. This took longer than i thought! I had to take several (no really, SEVERAL!) photos of my bendy figure in different positions so that the animation looked somewhat smooth. It turns out it was a lot more difficult than what i had first anticipated!

My animation clip turned out…okay! It certainly was not seamless but I got a taster of the apps possible uses and how it can be implemented in the classroom. For next weeks class we were asked to think about a possible animation clip that could be used to show children a natural disaster, historical event or real life scenario. Our group decided to go with a Tsunami animation, using Lego characters and crafting our own material for the clip.

This got me thinking of its uses in the classroom. iStopMovie could possibly be used as a means of showing a breakdown of, perhaps, a maths problem. Possibly using concrete objects to display a maths sum and how to solve it. The possible experiences and outcomes which could be covered using this app could be:

• I explore and discover different ways of representing ideas in imaginative ways. TCH 0-11a
• I can explore and experiment with sketching, manually or digitally, to represent ideas in different learning contexts. TCH 1-11a
• I understand that sequences of instructions are used to control computing technology. TCH 0-14a

I feel that the use of animation technology could be used in many ways to enhance learning in the classroom setting, and as reiterated in previous blog, the importance of teachers knowledge and confidence is paramount.

References

• Movingimageeducation. [Online] Available: https://movingimageeducation.org/create-films/animation [Accessed: 16 March 2019]
• Education Scotland. (n.d.) Curriculum for Excellence.[Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/All-experiencesoutcomes18.pdf [Accessed: 16 March 2019]