Creative animation

Over the past few weeks I have been teaching my class film making techniques and encouraging them to go off and create a short film of their own. One group decided to create an animated short based on a very simple idea of two characters playing games. I helped the group develop the idea along with a storyboard and editing but they did everything else – filming frame by frame using ‘I Can Animate from Kudlian Soft’, Windows Movie Maker and some natural sunlight (we didn’t have any other lighting unfortunately). The 2 minute short is a wonderful demonstration of student creativity.

Give them the tools, teach them how to use them and let them create.

Learning away from the classroom

A child in my class was off school today but kept ‘in contact’ with us using Edmodo. She explained to use she wouldn’t be in but would create an animoto as a surprise for someone in our class. We were all intrigued so we checked back later and before home time we discovered her link to the following video.

The video is for a girl who will be, like myself, leaving the class and the island at the end of June to start a life elsewhere. It’s a beautiful peice of work and brought home to me that my teaching of these tools is being used effectively for continued learning by my class outside of school.

Why should I use Myst in my classroom?

This time I’ll let my class tell you why.

NB  Thank you Tim Rylands for blogging about our use of Myst in our classroom.