Monthly Archives: January 2016

Animoto

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Here is my animoto video on Hedgehogs:  https://animoto.com/project/YrRtm3WxL0So3FjrphHaIw

I believe animoto would be a very good resource to use in a Primary Classroom. I found it very fun to use, not only this but it was also very simple. The simplicity of the programme means that it could very easily be used by primary school pupils, even those from lower down the school, with a bit of guidance from their teacher. Animoto could act as a great way to allow pupils to create fun presentations for their class, both alone and in groups. It offers a unique way of displaying the information they have learnt and can be used on a variety of topics, ranging from history to maths. It is also very appealing to look at, which I believe will keep the pupils focused whilst watching it.
I personally found it slightly frustrating that the character limit was so low but this could be beneficial as it encourages pupils to get straight to the point they are trying to make and not just float around it.
Animoto could also be used as a way for the teacher to teach some lessons, such as a lesson on a specific event in history, for example World War 2. In this circumstance Animoto could be used as a timeline to show the order in which significant events throughout the war occurred, or it could be used to focus solely on one event and go into more detail about the facts about that. The ability to add music and pictures makes it very interesting and may hold the pupils attention longer than an ordinary presentation with the teacher talking may.

Other ways I believe I could use Animoto in the classroom could be as a short video at the start of a lesson or new topic to give a brief overview of what we are going to learn today or as a way of displaying pupils work to their parents on parents evening etc.

Maths

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Throughout primary school I generally enjoyed maths, I understood it and I found it fun being able to work out all the problems. I looked forward to the mental maths test on a Friday morning and had an overall good feeling towards maths. As I entered into high school and maths got gradually harder my liking towards maths began to decrease, especially when it came to higher maths in S5, I hated it. I dreaded going to class, and not because of my teacher, I had had the same teacher since first year and she was great! I just hated the subject. I was in a class of very high achieving pupils and I always felt that I just wasn’t as good as any of them, I felt as though I was the only one who didn’t understand and always felt like I was falling behind in class. Although I hated this at the time I did somehow manage to pass my higher and I am now in some ways glad that I have had this experience. I know what it is like to truly struggle with something, to look at a piece of work and just feel like you are looking at some sort of foreign language, to try so hard but inevitably always hit a brick wall. I believe that after having experienced this myself I will be able to sympathise with pupils in my class who are struggling and understanding how they may be feeling and what they are going through.

I believe that interactive learning is the reason I enjoyed maths in primary school, we were always using physical objects such as counters and blocks. Being able to use these objects to improve my understanding made maths seem like a bit of a game, it made it fun and an enjoyable subject to be participating in. As a trainee teacher and further on when I become a fully qualified teacher I hope to be able to use interactive learning in my maths lessons as much as possible, to try and encourage my pupils to physically get involved with maths and see what is happening when you are adding and subtracting etc. and also making maths different to other subjects, adding variation to their learning, making it fun and intriguing for the pupils.

Technology in the Classroom

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In our first Technology input we created this video, along with a small flip book and another short animation made using Pivot Animator. I found this workshop very enjoyable and loved being able to use the computers for such a fun, new and exciting task. Although it was extremely fun, it was not necessarily easy, at first it took me a while to get to grips with all the different animation systems and understand how to work them, this made me think about the skills involved in using them, especially in a classroom.

These computer program’s required a lot of patience and both the teacher and pupils working on this task would have to maintain a high level of patience to allow the animation to work successfully and they would also have to show understanding towards each other. A good understanding of the computer systems would also be very useful for everyone as it would allow the learning process to be simpler for the pupils and easier for the teachers to explain, but this will not always be the case. A teacher should make sure they fully understand the animation systems they are using before presenting them to the pupils as this means that they will not only find it easy to teach and explain, but also be able to answer any questions the pupils may have and be able to offer valuable help and assistance to any pupils who are struggling.

If these skills are met and both the pupils and teacher work well then I believe these types of animation could be very effective within the classroom. It will create variety in the way pupils learn and add variation to their lessons, which will keep them interested as they will not just be carrying out the same, or similar tasks, in every lesson.  Everyone in my group, and those who I have spoken to from the other group seemed to really enjoy the workshop so I also believe that pupils would find this a fun and enjoyable lesson and they may look forward to using the programs again, for lots of different activities. These types of animation can be used for many different areas of learning, for example telling a story that the children have written in their Language work or being used as a visual aid to demonstrate the process of carrying out a certain calculation or equation in maths.