Background

The school as a whole were investigating the UN Rights of the Child and we were looking for an interesting way in which the children could depict the rights in action to showcase at an open day focusing on the topic. An Out of School Hours Animation Club was formed to create a series of short animations on the topic.

How ICT supported learning and teaching

The software gave the children a focus. They were inspired by the opportunity to create something different and exciting. It concentrated their planning and co-operative/team skills and gave them instant results of quality animation – this made the process seem less laborious and more fun. The children involved in the after school animation decided to use the skills they had gained and pass them on by offering to lead a new Thornlie Animation Club with younger children – building self confidence, citizenship, leadership and ICT skills. The hardware and software gave the children new opportunities to express how and what they learned.

Impact / conclusion

The animations were shown at the open day as well as a few key children running an animation workshop where visitors were invited to try out their own skills in animation. This club lead to the software being used in a number of classes for a variety of topic based work, e.g. P5/4 created a series of short films and animations on ‘Easter Superstitions’ which was shown at an open assembly, P5 creating shape making animations which were used by P1 during their maths shape work, a Thornlie Animations club and website has been created. The school has since purchased I Can Animate and 2 plug in web cams to continue the animation work within the school. None of this would have happened if we had not had the opportunity to experience the equipment first hand.