This session was all about familiarising ourselves with animation programs, exploring the positives and limitations when using it and finding what worked best for us. The animation programs that we explored were Puppet Pals and iStop Motion. I worked collaboratively with my partner to map out and create a learning experience using the animation programs.
Animation gives the illusion of movement when in fact it is many still images played back to back in a sequence, and then sped up. Animation consists of five main types according to Moving Image Education:
- Cutout – quickest and easiest
- Stop-motion – example is plasticine models
- Pixilation – humans become the puppets
- Drawn – example is the classical Disney animation
- Computer – also known as CGI and found in games and movies.
(Moving Image Education)
In my activity when using Puppet Pals, I tried to focus it on meeting the literacy needs of children who may need additional support. So, for this, I recreated the story of Cinderella but in an animated way. I found the skills and knowledge I had learnt in the multimodal session would benefit the purpose of this session and create a bigger learning experience for me as I would be learning to use these transferable skills in other settings. I incorporated the linguistic, visual and audio semiotic systems. I also 
tried to include the spatial and gestural system throughout some of the story to convey what was going on between the characters. If a child had issues with their sight, the linguistic and audio semiotic systems ensured that they were not at a disadvantage because they could listen to the story and understand what was going on and the feelings in the moment by the soundtrack in the background. If a child had a hearing impairment, the visual and spatial semiotic system made it easier for them to be able to have an understanding of what was going on. To create this, we had to move each character in one space a time and so on, we then sped it up to the speed that suited what was going on in the image at that point the best.
The curriculum experience and outcome I focused on in this activity was
- ‘I enjoy exploring and choosing stories and other texts to watch, read or listen to, and can share my likes and dislikes.’ (LIT 0-01b / LIT 0-11b)
(Education.gov.scot, n.d.)
Having completed the task and explored Puppet Pals, we moved onto our iStopMotion clip. For this we used two bendy figure and intended for them too look as if they were doing a fitness routine. I struggled more with this program than what I did Puppet Pals. When taking the photographs on the IPad I kept finding that we were moving the objects too much, so the final clip was not as well executed as hoped for.
Having reflected upon the use of Puppet Pals and iStopMotion clips, I was not overly impressed by the program. This could have been down to the fact the time it took to make both of these was far longer than the time they clip ended up being. Therefore, if I was to use this in a classroom setting, I do not feel I would be managing my time well. This program just didn’t capture my attention and interest the way that other sessions had. However, it could be a task for the children to complete so that they can then see the final results of what their hard work created. However, my opinion on this may change next week and I intend to go in with an open mind.
For this, me and my partner decided to make a story board so that we knew exactly what we were doing and what supplies we would have to bring with us. We also researched about volcanoes and what information we wanted to include in our animation. I felt this was a good idea as it meant everything was structured and we would be ready just to come in and get started. We decided to represent a geographical process of a volcano eruption and how it happens. We went down this route as throughout this module i’ve played to my strengths of working with curriculum areas that I have more of an understanding of or have recently studied so I knew what sort of paths to follow, however science has never been my forte so I thought this would be a good topic as it would push me out of my comfort zone and also help my own knowledge improve.
References
- Education.gov.scot. (n.d.). Curriculum For Excellence. [online] Available at: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/All-experiencesoutcomes18.pdf [Accessed 19 Feb. 2019].
- Movingimageeducation.org. (n.d.). Animation | Moving Image Education. [online] Available at: https://movingimageeducation.org/create-films/animation [Accessed 19 Feb. 2019].
