ANIMATION
Why?
Like many aspects of ICT and computing, animation is useful in the classroom for different reasons. Firstly, it is an alternative and interesting way of engaging pupils with different topics and issues, and secondly, it is important to introduce children to one of the world's fastest growing industries.
How?
Like many aspects of ICT and computing, animation is useful in the classroom for different reasons. Firstly, it is an alternative and interesting way of engaging pupils with different topics and issues, and secondly, it is important to introduce children to one of the world's fastest growing industries.
How?
![Picture](/uploads/2/3/4/7/23479848/9863691.jpeg)
Scratch Animation
Scratch is a free programming language where you can create your own interactive stories, games and animations. It is specifically designed to develop young people's understanding of computing in a creative and collaborative way through a "drag and drop" format.
Considering animation to be an interesting and important experience for children, I produced my own short animation using Scratch which can be viewed below:
Scratch is a free programming language where you can create your own interactive stories, games and animations. It is specifically designed to develop young people's understanding of computing in a creative and collaborative way through a "drag and drop" format.
Considering animation to be an interesting and important experience for children, I produced my own short animation using Scratch which can be viewed below:
The programme is good in that it does not take long to produce something basic, but more time will need to be spent learning about the more complex areas.
I began by picking some characters (called "Sprites" within Scratch) and programming their speech, thoughts and actions by building up a series of individual instructions. These can be seen on the right hand side of the screen shot below. This was fairly straightforward and only required an understanding of what each instruction meant. The hardest part of the animation was programming the bird to flap its wings while swooping down to pick up the fish, and then timing it so that the fish would be "picked up" and carried off by the bird. This was much more complex and required an understanding of the four quadrants of a graph in order to plot where the sprites needed to move to and at what speed.
I began by picking some characters (called "Sprites" within Scratch) and programming their speech, thoughts and actions by building up a series of individual instructions. These can be seen on the right hand side of the screen shot below. This was fairly straightforward and only required an understanding of what each instruction meant. The hardest part of the animation was programming the bird to flap its wings while swooping down to pick up the fish, and then timing it so that the fish would be "picked up" and carried off by the bird. This was much more complex and required an understanding of the four quadrants of a graph in order to plot where the sprites needed to move to and at what speed.
Pedagogy...
I would definitely consider using Scratch to teach a unit on animation. Not only will it give children an appreciation for how animations are created at the basic level, but it also supports teaching on programming and the idea that a series of instructions can bring about a desired result. It also seems like a good program to use for a lunchtime or Golden Time club, to give those with higher level ICT skills the opportunity to excel and create something that others may not be quite so capable of. Any session using Scratch would have to be very carefully planned. In my experience it can be as simple or as complicated as the user chooses to make it and for this reason, learning points would need to be very clear and specific.
Not only is Scratch an interesting and useful activity for children, but it could also be used by teachers to make lesson specific resources and interactive games.
I would definitely consider using Scratch to teach a unit on animation. Not only will it give children an appreciation for how animations are created at the basic level, but it also supports teaching on programming and the idea that a series of instructions can bring about a desired result. It also seems like a good program to use for a lunchtime or Golden Time club, to give those with higher level ICT skills the opportunity to excel and create something that others may not be quite so capable of. Any session using Scratch would have to be very carefully planned. In my experience it can be as simple or as complicated as the user chooses to make it and for this reason, learning points would need to be very clear and specific.
Not only is Scratch an interesting and useful activity for children, but it could also be used by teachers to make lesson specific resources and interactive games.