On Tuesday the 14th of February in Digital Technoligies we created an animation for internet safety aimed at children to help them stay safe online. We used the app iStop motion to create our short animation and we used a fairytale theme. We decided on this theme as we thought it would relate well with children and make them more interested in listening to the main message we wanted to portray about internet safety.
This app allows for a sequence of photos to play at a high speed, usually at 25 frames per second. With iStopmotion on the iPad it allows for individuals to easily create their own videos at home. When using iStop movie we included a background song, and took multiple pictures for the different events that happened throughout the story. We used our mobile phones to show the conversation between the princess and who she thought was prince charming. This was to reinforce the importance of online safety on social media for children.
When the princess finally met up with her prince charming, she was shocked and scared to realise that it was not her prince charming but a big bad dragon. We chose to do this as this also reinforces to children that not everybody is who they say they are online and encourages them to be more wary and careful when using social media. Even though, this story line is a fantasy and it would not happen like this in real life, our main aim was to emphasise that people may think their speaking to someone good (prince charming) but in reality it turns out to be a bad person (dragon) who never had good intentions in the beginning.
During this task we made links to Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes which can be seen below.
Mental and Emotional Wellbeing (HWB 0-01a) – I am aware of and able to express my feelings and I am developing the ability to talk about them.
Listening and Talking (LIT 0-01c) – I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts, sharing my thoughts in different ways.
“Digital storytelling begins with the notion that in the not too distant future, sharing one’s story through the multiple mediums of digital imagery, text, voice, sound, music, video and animation will be the principle hobby of the worlds people.” Porter,B,. (2004) Digi Tales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories. This therefore emphasises the great importance of digital storytelling within education as it allows for individuals to use various mediums throughout their learning to raise attainment levels.
There are many transferable skills which can be developed within individuals when working with digital literacy, which are creativity skills, effective communication skills, collaborative skills and many more and so it is very important that digital literacy is included into class lessons to provide children with these essential skills.
