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= Welcome to my wiki space about animation and movie making in the classroom. It is a work in progress and I hope to add to it as regularly as possible. I have always been fascinated with any type of animation and how they were created from the early Traditional animation Walt Disney films to the 3D computer designed movies of today such as Toy story. = The idea behind this wiki came to me after scrolling through the huge range of animations children or myself have created in class over the last four years. The idea is to share the experiences, trials, errors, celebrations and successes that my class have had when creating animations. If you have any questions about the wiki you can contact me at b.mccarthy@hokowhitu.school.nz

Latest project - I Can animate App
While checking the Kudlian site for news about the new version of I Can animate, I found that I Can animate is now offered as an App for iPods and iPhones. This is FANTASTIC! Now my class can create stop motion animations using just the iPod rather than having to set up a video camera, tripod, various cords and laptop. I plan to have this incorporated into my reading activities as work station for early finishes or specific group activities. Plus with a bit of trial and error I created a simple rotating stand for iPod to sit in for recording.

First go in the class - I Can animate App
So first day back at school after the conference and we had two groups of children trailing the iPods and animation App. Here was what we set up first before filming: 1. Children were expected to learn how to use this tool with guidance from the teacher but then were expected to teach others. 2. Basic animation techniques to be used - plain background so to avoid animation character being lost in the background - one Stikfas figure to be used and nothing else (otherwise children spent 20 minutes playing around with the Stikfas figures and not getting much else done!). 3. iPod & stand must be set up in one set space before filming as any movement will ruin the whole animation.



So what? - Evaluation & feed back
Well most the children said they found the iPod easy to use and had no problems animating with the Stikfas figures. Problems seem to be with how well the cardboard stands had been blue tacked to the desk or using to much blue tack on the Stikfas figure. The children picked up pretty quickly how to create a new file and delete unwanted clips. One group did have major issues exporting their work to iPhoto and then the iPod seemed to just wipe all their work! Overall the children were eager and keen to try out this new tool and I spotted many others in the class who were keen to try next time.

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