Stop Motion Animation, is there a place for it in the curriculum?

The answer is a resounding yes, in every curriculum area and age group.

Project Based Learning

Green Screens and Animation can be used relatively easily and extremely successfully in the classroom. Here are some practical pointers that we know work, as we've used them...

It's great if you can give children an open brief and allow them to explore areas which interest them.

Animation, as part of a project or as 'the project', engages all learning styles and encompasses both curriculum and 21st century learning skills.

Its not plain sailing though and you need to make sure that you, and your pupils,  do the research, planning and plan the execution stages.

What’s the point?

We are not suggesting that you turn up to school first thing on Monday and suggest to the whole school that everyone should just go and make a video. Technology without pedagogy is useless, it is just a time filler. The first thing to go through anyone’s mind should be what’s the objective, what do I want the children to learn and will technology improve these outcomes. If the answer is yes then proceed and enjoy.

Creating digital content has many practical possibilities. These include commonplace tasks such as word-processing, creating pictures using paint packages, working with digital photographs and video (including animations), writing computer programs, and creating online content such as blog posts, forum contributions, wiki entries and social network updates.

This creative work is digitised (i.e. converted to numbers) once it’s on the computer.

Pupils have an opportunity to develop a more critical media literacy as they work with tools that, until relatively recently, were the domain

of professionals. Tools for recording audio and video, and for creating animation, web pages, digital photos, digital music and 3D models,

motivating.

Creating a scripted or stop-motion animation telling the story of an email’s journey from sender to recipient.