The first day back at the university was great and much better than expected. After a long Christmas holiday I was dreading coming back to uni and getting back in the way of studying again (mainly because I thought that I had forgotten everything I had learned – This wasn’t the case)

The first day back my first lesson that I had was ICT and we did a lesson about animation. At first we were told to draw a small drawing in a piece of paper in which we would make a flip book animation. My first attempt was not the best as it didn’t really look like my image was moving. We were then told the correct way in which to do this and after my second attempt, my image did look like it was moving. Although this is a good way to explain animation to children in a class, it is also a fun creative activity that the children can do in an art lesson.

The second part of the lesson we used a program called Pivot Animator which is a simple stick figure animation program. We were played the song “Let it go” from the film Frozen as a stimulus for what we would make the stick figure on the screen do. This program is a great way for children to create stories using a stimulus such as a piece of music or even a script. It also is a great way for younger children to engage with technology.

Finally the last part of the lesson we used Zu3d which is again a computer program that children can use for animation. We used Plasticine characters and had to create a story and then go on to produce an animation. Firstly my group set up the first scene and we had to take a series of photos. Then the group had to move the characters slightly and take another series of photos. We had to repeat this process over to create a final animation. It took my group the whole hour of our Tdt time to create roughly a minute of work! This is a great program for children as it lets them get creative using a number of different resources. It can also link to literacy as they can create a story and then produce an animation to go along with it. It can also be interdisciplinary as it can be linked to an art lesson when it comes to creating the Plasticine characters for the animation.

I really enjoyed this lesson and it was a great way to start the new semester! I definitely see myself using these programs either on placements and when I become a fully qualified teacher.