Tuesday 26th February 2019
Today’s lesson is part two of animation and I am very excited, I have spent all week making sure I’ve got all the resources we need, and eventually I finished all my hand-made items. As you know form last week, we have to create an animation using iStopMotion, the animation had to involve one of the following:
- recreate a historical event
- represent a geographical process e.g. glaciation, volcanic eruption
- recreate a real-life scenario e.g. going to the dentist, shopping
- explain a mathematical principle.
My group decided to focus our animation around a natural disaster in the form of a tsunami, we agreed that this would be a great lesson for children if they were learning about natural disasters. Children would be encouraged to discuss ideas and plan how to create their animation, by using storyboards and talking like we did. They would have to do some research into the causes, aftermath and devastation a tsunami can cause and if there are any ways to prevent such a disaster. In doing this they would be developing their knowledge as well as building on imperative life-skills such as problem solving, confidence and working with others. As Beauchamp states, “ICT allows pupils to” achieve something that would be very difficult or even impossible to achieve in any other way.” (Beauchamp, 2012, p54).
When looking at the experiences and outcomes for this task, we decided this lesson would be aimed at second level children, due to the complexity of the task and also the level of skills children must already possess to carry the task out. The ability for interdisciplinary learning in this area is remarkable and allows for a great scope of lesson ideas. However, we chose three experiences and outcomes that we felt were most relevant, they are:
HWB 2-23a
While working and learning with others, I improve my range of skills, demonstrate tactics and achieve identified goals.
(Education Scotland, n.d. P.85)
SOC 2-07b
I can describe the physical processes of a natural disaster and discuss its impact on people and the landscape.
(Education Scotland, n.d. P.287)
SOC 2-12a
By comparing my local area with a contrasting area out-with Britain, I can investigate the main features of weather and climate, discussing the impact on living things.
(Education Scotland, n.d. P.29)
As you know I was very excited about starting this task and I enjoyed the planning and creative side of the animation but unfortunately when it came to the actual recording of the animation and having to move the figures, I was hopeless. My patience for fiddling about my awkward items is usually quite good, until today. Having to move the figures the tiniest bit and also making sure you are moving other bits in the background, so it is resembles real life, was so frustrating. After a while we were all a bit fed up and started to speed up, which then caused us to make mistakes and resulted in the task taking even longer, to agree with (Jarvis, 2015) it can be very time consuming. Something you would have to be very mindful of within the classroom. With all this is mind though, I was very pleased with the finished result and will definitely think about trying animation when I hopefully become a teacher.
The finished video can be accessed here:
Animation would be a brilliant tool to use within the classroom, it allows children to explore other avenues of technology and how it benefits their learning. Although I do believe it takes a certain kind of person to have the patience and ability to develop a decent length of animation film as it really is a slow process, from planning the animation, to the resources you use and the most time-consuming part, making the objects move naturally. It requires a level of dedication, perseverance and skill. However, with a structured lesson plan and an understanding of the most difficult areas of animation, I believe children’s life-skills would thrive in this type of task. I am glad the animation part of the module was spread over two weeks as I think one week would have been rushed and we would not have ended up with the results we achieved. Likewise, if I was doing this lesson in class I would spread it over a couple of weeks, to allow the children to fully complete the animation and have a clear understanding of animation. Again, this was a fantastic group I was in, we all work really well together, supported each other and encouraged each others strengths, and I am so glad we are all on this journey together.
Deborah ♥
References:
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary School; From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson Education Limited.
Education Scotland. (n.d.) Curriculum for Excellence.[Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/documents/All-experiencesoutcomes18.pdf[Accessed:8 January 2019].
Jarvis, M. (2015) Brilliant Ideas for using ICT in the Classroom.Oxon: Routledge.
