Week 5

Animation in Primary Schools Continued

Talk about information over load!! My head came out spinning at the end of this tutorial and lecture. I had no idea there were so many programs available out there on the web ready to help students make animations, movies, comic strips, characters etc. We were introduced to some amazing resources that I will endeavor to use throughout my future teaching career. The examples of some students animations, and in particular the clay animations from Hawthorndene Primary in SA that Greg showed us in the lecture were fantastic. I remember making a film in Year 7 and it was no where near as good, I think, as these displays of achievement. Both the students and teachers at Hawthorndene Primary School should be so proud of the success they have achieved. Their outcomes and final clay animations are a credit to the level of commitment to the task by each and every one of them involved.

Some of my favourite resources that we had a look at during the tutorial today are listed below with a brief explanation to what they are and what they could be used for in the classroom.

* Build your wild self *

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

This is a website that allows you to make a human character of your choice and then add your favourite animal part/s. It is a fun activity that allows students to be creative and individual. You could get the students to print out and write a description about their character, as well as why they included that particular animal characteristic/s.

* Zimmer Twins *

http://www.zimmertwins.com/
Zimmer twins is a program that allows you to watch and make your own movies. It is similar to the program Dvolver as previously discussed, however it is appropriate for children of most primary school ages to use. Students can watch movies to get ideas for their own movie and also to use as a starting point. What I mean by this is they may show you an example of a start to a movie and you may get your class in groups, or as a whole grade, to write and produce one possible ending that could happen.

* Sketch Swap *

http://www.sketchswap.com/

Sketch swap is a simple little program that allows students to draw a sketch of their choice, unless told of a requirement, and submit their drawing online. Once they submit their sketch it becomes available all over the world wide web. The screen in front of them will then start to automatically draw a sketch back to them. This drawing is one that someone else anywhere, and of any age, in the world has drawn and submitted. The sketches are drawn at random and therefore this may lead to inappropriate drawings being displayed for primary aged children. For example if a grade 2 student submitted a sketch of a rainbow and they got back a picture of a man with a gun this may not be sending out a very good message. Therefore teachers would have to seriously consider the pros and cons of using this program in the primary classroom, as we can not control what is sent back for the students to see.
Here is an example of a sketch that I received back:








* Reasonably Clever *

http://www.reasonablyclever.com/?page_id=29

This program is a bit of fun for students as they can use it to create a Lego character. Once they have created a Lego character they can then paste it into other programs as a graphic and therefore have their personally designed character available to be used in a movie or animation.
An important reminder about using this program is to make sure that you use the Classic Kid-Safe Mini-Mizer function. This just ensures the program is always suitable for children at the primary school age group and nothing inappropriate can be seen or found.
Below is an example of a Lego character that I designed:



















* Xtranormal *

http://www.xtranormal.com/
Xtranormal is another website that you can use to make online films and animations. Again it also shows you examples of different movies that have already been made and may give you ideas and inspiration for details of your movie.

* Typing Blind *

During our tutorial today Greg asked us all to open up the program word on our computers and have a blank new page on the screen. He then asked us to turn off our screens. Once we had done this he read out some text and we had to try and type what he was saying without actually seeing what you were typing. I found this activity really quite disconcerting. It was very strange to concentrate so hard about what buttons you were pressing on the keyboard and not use your eyes or vision to look at the screen for reassurance, editing and checking. Rather than relying on technology to check your spelling for you it was all up to your hearing or listening skills and your keyboard vision only. The title of the piece of text that we had to type was called Ode to a spell checker and this is what I typed:

Greg then told us to turn back on our screens and check what we had typed. He then went on to inform us that he was quite certain that no one in the room had the correct text typed on there screen. This is what the text in front of him looked like:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows we strait a weigh.

This text is to engage students and get them thinking about homophones and probably all the examples that they can think of. I loved this activity and would love to find use for it in curriculum with my own class.

* Rollermache *

http://www.abc.net.au/rollercoaster/rollermache/
This is again a fantastic program that is designed to help students and others make animations. It allows you to browse clips, create story boards, develop characters and experiment with props. The only thing about this program is that you do have to register with them but once that is confirmed you can upload your own media.










* Rebus *

http://www.storygames.com/TeachmanPF/Rebus.html

Writing a rebus story involves using pictures instead of or in place of some of the words. As you can see in the example there is a picture of a crab seen rather than writing the word crab. I have seen stories such as this one previously and I think they are a wonderful idea. They would be a great design to use particularly with the junior school students and perhaps the older students could make one of their own for the little students to read. It is a great idea for young visual readers that need a bit of extra support in their comprehension. Greg also told us that when making a rebus story such as this example it is possible to keep the little jiffs (moving icons or pictures) moving in a word document by saving the story as a web page.

* Ziptales *

http://www.ziptales.com.au/
Is an Australian website that also requires you to subscribe. Once you have subscribed to this website you are able to explore all the different areas that are available. It is a website that offers exciting, engaging and interactive stories for students at the primary level. This could be easily integrated into the curriculum.


* Toondoo *

http://www.toondoo.com/Home.toon
This last program that I am going to mention enables students to make and design their own comic strip. It is so easy and simple to do using this program that most, if not all, primary aged students will be able to produce a fantastic comic strip of their very own.

Another interesting and creative activity or lesson that Greg mentioned during our tutorial this week was getting the students to assist each other in writing stories. The way that he explained it to us was that every student is given 10 minutes or so to start writing any story of their choice. After the allocated time a whistle is blown and every student in the room has to stand up and move to a different student's desk or story. They then need to read what this person has written so far and keep going with the story however they see fit. Again once the whistle is blown after the allocated time students will stand up again and move spots. Obviously the amount of time and the amount of swaps will depend on many factors including the age of the students, the overall time restraint and the purpose of the lesson. I would think that if you have four different students contribute to each story and then allow the initial story writer to finish the story that would work quite well. I think this activity sounds like a great, fun idea that I would definitely like to try with my students.

Finally I would like to end this blog entry by saying that I feel very lucky and privileged to have been given such wonderful, useful and engaging resources to use in my own classroom. Although I stated at the beginning of this post that I was in over load, in the nicest possible way, I am very appreciative of the wealth of knowledge, guidance and support that I have been provided with not only to complete this subject at uni but also to provide me with such a rich amount of material to use, incorporate and develop for the rest of my teaching career.