Month: January 2017

This week’s focus was animation. “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” (Movingimageeducation.org, 2017). And when it’s played back, it appears to move. (quoted from powerpoint). Animation is a technique that has been around for centuries and in present day is in our daily lives; from Hollywood films to computer games to television, we can’t escape how much animation speeds our lives up.

In education, animation plays a huge part in a child’s development. It offers many benefits and skills development in schools such as

-developing visual literacy skills

-develop literacy skills (including writing, storyboarding and editing)

-encourage critical thinking

-build problem solving skills

-encourage collaboration and co-operation

-develop sequencing and order concepts

-work collaboratively

-engage in contructing meaning (asking questions, discussing, researching)

-cross-curricular

(quoted from powerpoint).

 

During the workshop, we explored concepts such as the Thaumatrope, Flick books and Stop-frame animation. It was through this session that we were able to use video equipment, paper, play dough,  projectors, sand and laptops.

In a classroom, this type of learning can be time-consuming and will need organisation, however, can be worth the planning when several curricular areas are combined and there is a finished product that the children are proud of (Movingimageeducation.org, 2017).

Movingimageeducation.org. (2017). Animation | Moving Image Education. [online] Available at: https://movingimageeducation.org/create-films/animation [Accessed 20 Jan. 2017].

Today’s first class was an introduction to the Expressive Arts and Culture module and a brief overview of the weeks to come. There was also an introduction to exploring ‘Learning through evocative objects for teaching and learning’. We were shown a few examples of previous work that has been developed from the stimulus of an evocative object such as the book ’26 Treasures’ (Simmons, 2012) before discussing our chosen evocative objects and what they meant to us. My choice of object was my ring, which was given to my mum on her 21st birthday by my grandma and I wear it every day.

 

I hope by the end of the module, I will fully understand the possibilities of using a stimulus like this to create a final piece that not only includes art but a variety of other curricular areas. I also hope that I can successfully create a piece of artwork that represents my evocative object.

Simmons, J. (2012). 26 treasures. 1st ed. London: Unbound.

I chose the Expressive Arts and Culture module because I enjoyed the Integrated Arts module so much. Art has played a huge part in my self-development, education and development as a teacher. I believe that “the teacher’s role is to interact with individual children who are finding their own identity, their own means of understanding and communicating and their own powers of creativity” (McAuliffe, 2007), and I feel that the arts play a huge part in this. I hope that throughout this module, I will deepen my knowledge of art in education and learn more teaching methods to use in schools. I believe that no child can deepen their understanding of the world or their education without the aid of expressive arts and their culture.

McAuliffe, D. (2007) Teaching Art and Design 3-11. Edited by Sue Cox, Robert Watts, Judy Grahame, Steve Herne, and Diarmuid McAuliffe. London, United Kingdom.