Category Archives: Curriculum resources

Spinners Experiment Write Up

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Possible Variables:

  • Wing Length
  • Weight
  • Card Thickness
  • Size of Spinner
  • Varying Wings
  • Height Dropped

Possible Observations:

  • Speed
  • Number of Spins
  • Duration of Spins

 

My Question
When I change CARD THICKNESS, what will happen to the SPEED at which the spinner falls?

My Prediction
The spinner with the thicker card will fall faster than the thinner spinner.

 

To make this a controlled experiment we created two spinners of equal size and equal wing length but one spinner was made out of paper whilst the other was created out of thick card. Once we had created our spinners and ensured that the only difference was the card thickness we began the experiment. To ensure the experiment was fair we made sure we were dropping both spinners from an equal height by measuring 2 meters from the ground. We then dropped the spinners and timed their drop time. We did this twice to ensure our results were reliable, we made sure that the same people dropped the spinners both times to keep the experiment controlled.
After we had conducted the experiment we calculated the results. To do this we added the two times for each spinner together and divided the result by two to find the average fall time.
The results showed that the thicker spinner fell in 3.43 seconds, whilst the thinner spinner took 4.45 seconds to fall showing that the thinner spinner took 1.02 seconds longer to fall than the thicker one. This result shows that the initial prediction was correct.

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.

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.