Last week in digital technologies, we were given the task to create an animation to highlight the importance of internet safety to young children.  We were given the choice between iMovie and iStop Motion to create these animations. The iStop Motion app involves taking a series of pictures and placing the sequence of pictures together at a high speed  to create a movie. The iMovie app also allows you to make movies by combining multiple clips, inserting pictures, applying a soundtrack and using other effects. For our animation, we used the iStop Motion app. The experiences and outcomes for our animation were as follows:

Mental and Emotional Wellbeing: HWB 0-01a- I am aware of and able to express my feelings and 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 and sharing my thoughts in different ways.

Technological Developments in Society: TCH 1-01a- By exploring and using technologies in the wider world, I can consider the ways in which they can help.

Our animation was based on a fairytale. We thought by taking this approach children would be more engaged and pay more attention to it. Our animation highlighted the dangers of talking to strangers online. The example that we used was a Princess that thought she was talking to her ‘Prince Charming’, however, it turned out to be a dragon that resulted in her being taken and never seen again. Although this is a very unrealistic example, it gets across the fact that not everyone that you speak to online is who they say they are. It is also a better approach to take when promoting internet safety to young children as real- life examples may scare them.

“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 world’s people.” Porter, B., (2004) Digi Tales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories. This tells us that animation making will soon become an enjoyable activity throughout the world. Therefore, it is an important skill that young people should have as it could also be used for educational purposes and raising awareness on issues, as we did in our internet safety animation. For these reasons, digital story telling should be introduced in more schools and classrooms across the world.