This week in digital technology, we were studying animation. We looked at the different ways animation could be used within the classroom and also where the benefits of animation lie within the curriculum.

The animation applications we studied today were on an iPad and they were; Puppet Pals, iMovie and iStop Motion. I have briefly used some of these apps in the past and having the opportunity to revisit them reassures me that my confidence is growing with this kind of technology. Which makes me think of the positive impact that these types of technologies can bring to young learners for example; confidence, communication, expression and collaboration. Moving Image Education state that when making mini movies or trailers there different skills involved which means that the full class can participate. Everyone will have something to contribute therefor, making a film creates an opportunity to extend talents and empower the young learners mean while it is working on team spirit.

Today our task while working in pairs was to create a short and simple animation piece, there were many resources available to us such as toy cars, toy characters, lego and soft toys, along with pens and paper.  We decided to use lego as we felt the scene would be fairly easy to build and also that we could move the characters with ease throughout the short animation piece. This however proved us quite wrong as the lego figures often fell over and were quite delicate. We had to keep them exactly where they were in order for each still to move in order as we were using the iStop Motion app.

The iStop Motion app runs a series of still pictures together at a speed selected by the creator, the app also allows for sound to be added to the pictures when they are moving. We also struggled to secure our iPad in one position as we couldn’t find the right objects to help us prop it up, this resulted in our animation piece being quite jumpy and not as precise as we would have liked.

In result of the above I feel this will help me to guide young learners through an animation lesson as I understand how tricky it can be and also why simple is better, to start off with anyway. For me having the opportunity once more means, I have more confidence in this activity and I will certainly try my best not show any sort of fear towards digital technology.

Beauchamp (2012) believes that fear can transmit over to young children’s minds and then you are faced with the risk that a fear of technology or applications is then imbedded in them. Jarvis (2015) states that children should have these technologies involved in their everyday lives and not just timetables visits to a computer room, however the lessons and the outcomes must be relevant in order for firstly the children to engage their interest and also for them to be curious and to get creative with it.

If you incorporate what we covered in class today in a class lesson, there are many possible links to the CFE Experiences and Outcomes. Such as Literacy, Health and Wellbeing, Technology and many more, some possible links to the CFE Experiences and Outcomes  could be as followed;

References

• Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary School. [Online] Available: dawsonera.com/readonline/9781408251379 [Accessed: 25 February 2018].

• Education Scotland. (2004) Curriculum for Excellence; Experiences and Outcomes. [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers [Accessed: 25 February 2018].
• Jarvis, M. (2015) Brilliant Ideas for Using ICT in the Classroom: A Very Practical Guide for Teachers and Lecturers. Routledge.
• Moving Image Education. [Online] Available: https://movingimageeducation.org/create-films/animation [Accessed: 25 February 2018].