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.