Autumn Animations

We had pupils from Heritage Park and Sevenhills Schools in for a number of sessions last half term creating some animations.

Heritage Park students animated the story of Perseus and Medusa – first reducing the tale to a manageable number of scenes and creating some fantastic figures out of plasticine. Once they had animated the story in I Can Animate, they edited in Windows Movie Maker, adding a voiceover and titles to help understanding. You can see their finished film below:

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The group of year 11 students from Sevenhills had an equally difficult task as they had to come up with their own stories to animate. All of them were influenced by films, TV programmes and computer games for their topics, and found that creating the characters and developing a story was the hardest part of the process. You can see a couple of examples of their films below:

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Double Club – Learning English through Football

This term saw the launch of the Double Club at the CLC. Selected students from Newfield School spend time on a Thursday at the CLC doing English lessons, with all the resources based on football related themes, and each week there is a new team captain to lead the training. The club is an extension of the Playing for Success scheme based at the Sheffield United ground, and the students receive 2 hours of football training after school each week from United coaches.

The Club has been very successful so far, with students returning early from lunch to continue with the activities.

To see what the students have been learning, and how they feel about it, see the Double Club blog here.

Sri Lanka Transition Project

A year 6 class from Sir Harold Jackson School spent a number of sessions at the CLC this half term to work on a transition project. The original plan was to focus on French and learn about Madagascar with support from Paula Lewis at Meadowhead, but after a visit from a Sri Lankan lady to the school, we changed the focus.

The idea behind the project was to learn more  about Sri Lanka whilst learning new ICT skills in order to present what they had found out. They began by finding images of Sri Lanka and using Picnik to edit the photos and add text. Students also researched the weather in Sri Lanka and presented their own weather reports, using the Green Screen to add backgrounds. Finally they created comic strips using Comic Life, to write mini-interviews with imaginary residents of Sri Lanka. By the end of the project, all the students were confident in using the tools and were showing the teachers how it was done. In addition to the work on Sri Lanka, each pupil created a Glog (multimedia poster) to reflect on what they had learnt.

Annabel Wales, the class teacher said, “The experiences of each pupil over the past six weeks have been individual and varied. They have been in charge of their own learning and while having a great deal of fun, have learnt some incredible and very impressive new skills. These skills while mostly linked to IT and geography have also been social skills and skills which will stand them in good stead for their transition to their secondary schools [...] Overall this has been an incredibly successful project for all involved.”

Paula Lewis commented, “This has been a fantastic experience all round for staff and pupils. I have seen the students gain in self-confidence through acquisition of new skills and using new applications [...] Incredible thanks from me to the CLC and to Mrs Wales and all the support staff from SHJ for making this happen, and huge congratulations to the Y6 students of SHJ who have been a total inspiration.”

India Poetry

A year 4 class from Mundella School came to the CLC last week to create multimedia poems based on work written in school about India. We used Photostory to create the poems, which is a free download. The pupils uploaded photos to the program and added text over each one, they could then change the movement of each photo and add transitions. Finally they added music, which they could create within Photostory, to complement their poem. The pupils all really enjoyed using Photostory, as it is easy to use and they liked all the effects. Below are two examples of their poems:

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Chocolate Glogs from Totley Primary

A Year 4 class from Totley Primary visited the CLC yesterday to present the information they had learnt about Chocolate. Initially their teacher had asked to use Publisher to create leaflets, but after seeing the possiblities that Glogster offered, she decided that chocolate glogs were a better, and more varied, way to present the information.

Before they arrived, the class took photos of their trip to a chocolate factory and their classroom display about the subject. They also borrowed some of our Flip Mino video cameras to record short interviews about their likes and dislikes, as well as jingles for made up chocolate bars.

The teacher had created an educational account on Glogster, with accounts for all the students. This meant that the Glogs remained private except to other members of the class. Each pupil created their own Glog, using text, images and video about Chocolate. They could customise the look of their Glog to suit their own personal taste, which they really liked. There is always a danger that pupils spend more time on the aesthetics than the content, but with close monitoring from the teacher, this shouldn’t be a problem.

The finished posters were excellent, and the pupils remained focussed all morning on the task. For the last half hour of the session they were allowed to use the inbuilt messaging application, to talk to their friends. This is an excellent way of providing feedback, both between the pupils, and from the teacher. It is also an opportunity to discuss how to behave online towards others.

The class teacher, Nicola Wileman, gave us some audio feedback. Please click here to hear it.

Monkey Do, Monkey See

The CLC was overrun with monkeys 2 weeks ago, as two year 4 classes from Sir Harold Jackson School arrived in order to animate the story Monkey Do, Monkey See. The classes read the story as part of a literacy project at school, then they made some beautiful sets and props to bring to the CLC. Once here they animated the story using Stop Motion Pro – not my favourite animation software, but the one we have for the PCs. Whilst one group was animating, the other group used Comic Life to create a comic strip version of the story, then they swapped at lunchtime. The groups will finish their animations at school, using Windows Movie Maker to add titles, credits, voiceovers and music.

The students worked really well together in their groups, and managed to create some fantastic animations, as you can see below. Their teacher said,

“The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and were actively involved in both activities, which ran very smoothly.”

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Mr Men Animations

A Year 3 class from Norton Free Primary School wrote their own Mr. Men and Little Miss stories at school, then created hand drawn sets and characters to bring to the centre. At the CLC they worked in groups using I Can Animate and iMovie on Apple Macbooks to animate their stories in two dimensions. Animation is always a difficult skill for young children, as it involves good teamwork to agree how the story will progress, attention to detail and a lot of patience. The end result is always worth it though, as you can see by the example below:

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Victorian Times at the CLC

Year 5 pupils from Sharrow School came to the CLC to recreate life in Victorian Britain. They came with costumes and props and acted out scenes inspired by the book Street Child by Berlie Doherty in the form of news reports. These were filmed in front of the green screen, so that they could use photos of the era as backgrounds. They included stealing from the pie shop, escape from the workhouse and a family being evicted from their house. Following filming, they edited the clips in Windows Movie Maker to create their finished film.

The result looks fantastic, and the pupils all enjoyed the experience. Here is a short audio clip from their teacher:

Click here for audio clip

Spooky Stories from Sharrow School

Year 4 pupils from Sharrow School spent a morning at the CLC writing and illustrating some spooky stories using Photo Story – this is a free download off the internet, and you can find it by clicking here. Pupils used photos taken around Sharrow at night, and added captions, effects and music to create their stories. The software is fairly easy to use, and you finish up with a video file of your story. The pupils really enjoyed using it, and worked really hard all morning. For a help sheet on how to use it, click here.

Below you can see examples of the pupils’ work:

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Heritage Park – Digital Story Telling

Two groups of students from Heritage Park have been writing and illustrating short stories at the CLC over the past few weeks, using 3 different bits of software. They began using Kar2ouche – this software contains a number of titles, from Creative Writing to Egyptians. In each one there are a number of backgrounds, characters and props that pupils drag onto the stage to create scenes. They can add speech/thought bubbles and text boxes to tell the story. Once finished, they can save the story as a movie file, or print it out. This s quite expensive software, but it proved to be very motivating for the students.

The second piece of software was Comic Life, which I have written about previously here. The students sourced photos from the internet, and took extras using digital cameras. They could then add these to their own comic strip and add dialogue. This software is relatively cheap, and can be used for so many different projects.

The final software we used was Photostory, which is free! Students uploaded photos on a particular subject, and added effects, transitions, movement, text and a soundtrack. Finally they published the story to play as a Windows Media file.

All three pieces of software were excellent for engaging the students, regardless of their level. They were easy to use, and the final outcomes were very successful. They are ideal packages for working on literacy skills across all age groups and abilities, and the content can be relevant to their interests.