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The Teachers’ Animation Toolkit
planning, organizing and developing awareness of the wider world.
All of these skills and experiences can be readily assessed.
From
the outset, we wanted the practice of animation to be explored
alongside the teaching of media or cineliteracy. The toolkit aims to
show teachers how the viewing of animated fi lms can be a valuable
starting point for classroom discussions around cineliteracy and can
also be used as a theoretical frame of reference for the projects that
they produce.
Animation is the most dynamic form of expression available to
creative people . . . Animation is used in science, architecture,
healthcare and broadcast journalism . . . it is simply everywhere!
(Paul Wells,
The Fundamentals of Animation
, Thames and
Hudson 2006)
RESEARCH TECHNIQUES
Ten schools across Norfolk, UK took part in the research, which
ran over a 3-year period between 2004 and 2007.
It involved testing
a wide variety of teaching approaches and animation genres then
collecting evidence to evaluate their effi cacy and the learning that
had taken place. Evidence took the form of student sketchbooks,
interviews, photographs and examples of student-made animations.
Video recordings of lessons were made and handheld cameras
were used to pick up on relevant issues, raised in discussions
between practitioner and pupils or practitioner and teacher.
Pupils were asked
to explain, in open discussion, their thought
processes, their decision making and their overall responses to
the assignment via the camera and evaluation sheets. These
discussions were used to explore how pupils articulated the visual
and text-based language of music,
sound production and moving
images. Their responses were complemented by after-class
interviews with the teachers. The evidence was then edited in order
to highlight key points and recommendations and prioritize the best
practice for inclusion in this toolkit.
Introduction
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Teachers were provided with worksheets, showing how to animate
without expensive technology and useful tips on what animations
might be shown to the class. The worksheets promoting cineliteracy
were carefully designed to fi t within the UK curriculum standards.
Many offered
active learning, extension work and differentiated
activities to suit all learners and to fi t within 50/60 minutes of
classroom time. Schemes of work focused on more advanced
projects and took place over a series of lessons. All these materials
were refi ned in response to teacher and student evaluation before
being included in the toolkit.
Not only have you brought life into the department and
demonstrated what amazing results can be achieved by our pupils,
you have encouraged and inspired pupils who fi nd the academic
subjects more challenging. I have noticed some real positive
changes in a particular group of challenging boys, who have really
taken to the workshops . . . (One of these) rarely shows enthusiasm
and is one of these ‘too cool for school’ types. I thought he would
struggle with collaborative work and probably moan through
the whole thing but he remained quiet and took part with little
distraction. It was after the workshop when he went out of his way to
fi nd me to explain how much he loved the day and how he wanted to
do more of this in the future.
(Dan Coombes, Head of Art, Flegg High School)
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