Teaching Animation in Schools

Teaching students how to create animated movies is a great way to help them learn. Here’s why:

• It’s a fun way to learn topics from the standard course of study
• It promotes teamwork
• Students work with their hands and solve problems as they create hand-drawn animation, paper cut-out animation, clay animation or stop motion animation
• It uses several learning styles: visual, verbal, kinesthetic
• It engages students who struggle with writing papers or oral presentations

Hardware needed to create animation:

• A camera that can be connected directly to a computer. Two types work best:
• Webcam, which includes a USB cable that plugs into a computer
• Mini-DV Camcorder, which plugs into a computer using an IEEE-1394 (Firewire)  cable

• A computer (PC or Mac, preferably with DVD burner)
• Support equipment: tripod, lights, a means of supporting backgrounds
• Or consider our ReadyANIMATOR; details at: www.ReadyANIMATOR.com

Software needed:

• Animation capture software, which captures images one frame at a time, and then strings them together into a movie. Available software:
• Frames 4: www.tech4learning.com/frames (PC, Mac, Linux)
• I Can Animate: www.kudlian.net/products/icananimate (PC, Mac)
• Stop Motion Pro: www.stopmotionpro.com (PC)
• i-StopMotion: www.boinx.com/istopmotion (Mac)

• Editing software is helpful, such as Windows MovieMaker for PC or iMovie for Mac

More details about all of the above in future blogs.

Welcome to Class Animation

This blog helps teachers inspire students to create animation on topics in the standard course of study. You'll get tips on making clay animation, stop-motion animation and 2d animation. There will be articles on the nuts and bolts of creating traditional animation in the classroom, with recommendations on cameras, software and computers. See the animation equipment we designed specifically for producing animation in schools at:
www.ReadyANIMATOR.com