Week 5- My personal thoughts and reflections.... Animation in the classroom

I found the lecture this week on animation and claymation really interesting. I found it particularly inspiring that many teachers were unfamiliar with these topics but still embraced them enthusiastically. I recall one teacher from a school saying that the children approached him about doing claymation as they had been introduced to it the year before by a different teacher. Although he had no experience at all, the children were so enthusiastic that he decided to go ahead with it and learn from them. I really like the idea that the teacher and students can learn together and that a teacher not knowing how to do something is not a barrier. If it is a barrier both the teacher and students could miss out on so many valuable learning opportunities. That would be a real shame.

Week 5- My personal thoughts and reflections.... Electronic Games

This week I read some articles on electronic games and learning. I found this experience to be a real eye-opener. I have to admit I was one of those people that often viewed electronic games as something that distracted children from learning rather than being a rich source of learning. Prensky (2003) raises some very valid points- children learn when they are motivated and in order to be motivated children need to be engaged. Computer games seem to be able to do this. They have the ability to make children interested, cooperative, competitive, results oriented and encouraged to seek information and solutions. Futhermore while playing these games children learn to absorb information from multiple sources, make quick decisions, deduce the rules on their own, think strategically and understand complex systems (Prensky 2003).

However it's also interesting to note that according to Kirriemuir and McFarlane (2006) most educational games fail to realise expectations because they are often too simplistic, the tasks are repetitive and they do not support progressive understanding.

What I take from all of this is that there are many skills to be gained by children from playing electronic games. In an education context however if these games are to be utilised in the classroom some careful thought will need to be given as to how they are developed.

References:

Prensky, M. (2003). Digital Game-Based Learning. ACM Computers in Entertainment 1(1), 1-4

Kirriemuir, J. & McFarlane, A. (2006). Learning through Games. NESTA futurelab REPORT 8 Literature Review in Games and Learning.

Week 5- Animation and Movie Making

Today we created various animations and movies on different websites. Some of what I created appears below:

1. Sketch Swap

Using the website http://www.sketchswap.com/ I created the picture below and selected swap sketch. My picture was then sent to someone else somewhere in the world and I received a picture from another sketcher. The sketch I received was of Mr and Mrs Brown and their now house. Mr and Mrs Brown were very cross because they're extremely tall and their new house was built too small for them.

2. Build your wildself

Using the website www.buildyourwildself.com/ I was able to create an image of a wild person. It was fantastic how you could choose every aspect of "your wildself", from eyebrow shape to whether or not you had wings. My "wildself" appears below. This website was lots of fun and really allowed me to be creative.

3. Mini-Mizer

Using the website: http://www.reasonablyclever.com/mini/kidsafe.htm I created a lego character of myself. This was also a lot of fun. My "plastic" image appears below.

4. Xtranormal

I used the website http://www.xtranormal.com/ to make a movie. I was able to choose the number of actors, design the scene and write the script. A snapshot of my movie appears below. I enjoyed doing this and found it quite challenging.

5. Zimmer Twins

The website http://www.zimmertwins.com.au/ was another site that you could use to make movies. Making movies on this site was a little more challenging than Xtranormal. I felt I really had to think about the script and make sure the scenes made sense and followed on from each other. I'm not sure my movie did make much sense in the end but it was a great learning experience and really good fun. Two scenes from my movie appear below.

6. Dvolver

I created another movie using the website http://www.dvolver.com/live/home.html and my particular movie can be viewed here: http://www.dvolver.com/live/movies-257396 This website was fun to play around with and definitely not suitable for children. Having watched my movie back I probably should have added some more to the script. The characters mouths are moving far too much compared to what they are saying but not too bad for my first try!