Week7 -Animation part 1
In this week’s session we were looking at animation. Bertrancourt (2005) suggests three ways in which animation can be used to enhance learning:
- To enhance learners’ visual representations.
- To illustrate processes.
- To provide an interactive element. (Jarvis, 2015, p92)
This shows that in education today there are many ways that we can develop the learning of our young pupils. Animation opens up many avenues to teaching, as you can show them an animation or give the pupils a task to create an animation (Beauchamp, 2012).
In this week’s session we were to investigate the “iStop motion” app. Once we were familiar with the tools available in the app, we were to have a trial run and get used to using the app so we could get the best out of it.
For this trial run I used my computer with an image of a street setting and used a man figure to create an animation of him walking down the street. To do this I had to take multiple pictures of him in different positions moving him down the screen every picture. This was harder to do than I expected. However, after a few attempts I finally got it to work. This was good experience and gave me a good basis on how to work the app.
If I was to change anything, I would change the figures I used, as they were hard to keep still and did not bend well the way I wanted them to. Another thing I’d change is the background. I would not us my laptop as it was very basic and did not look as good as I had hoped.
We were then told to get into groups, as next week we have to create an animation. I chose the same group that I worked with in the movie making exercise as we worked well together. The animation we were to create had to be about:
- recreates a historical event
- represents a geographical process eg glaciation, volcanic eruption
- recreates a real-life scenario eg going to the dentist, shopping
- explains a mathematical principle.
After this session, I am looking forward to next week. I believe my group and I can make a very good animation if we put our minds to it.
References:
Jarvis, M. (2015) Brilliant Ideas for Using ICT in the Classroom: A Very practical Guide for Teachers and Lecturers. Routledge.
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary School: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson.