WEEK 4: " ANIMATIONS"

What we were taught this week really made me realize how important is to be aware of online tools, I would have never thought that animation softwares are so easy to get access to. I thought that to elaborate or design an animation it was needed specific and expensive programmes or tools which required professional training. 

Obviously, I already knew that there are a lot of online apps which makes possible to elaborate and share comics (www.pixton.com ), online books (www.calameo.com ) or interactive presentations (www.prezi.com) , but I had no idea about such amazing tools like StoryJumper and Moovly. 

Thanks to StoryJumper we can make and customize our own story books. This tool includes a good text editor (we can choose the size of the letter, offers different typography options and many draw to decorate the tittles or textboxes) and a big gallery of items and illustrations that we also can amplify by importing images of photographs from the net or our own computer. In my point of view I would like to say maybe it is more suitable to use this tool to propose the children to invent and represent their stories instead of just implementing this app to create materials for teaching lessons.

Then I come across Moovly, an online software that overpassed my expectatives. At first I wasn’t able to see its potential but after a while exploring this tool I found out all the most interesting options. We can record our voices to simulate dialogues or bring to life characters (or just narrate and story), we can add music to contextualized the animation and we can also animate items (the ones that are included in the gallery or whichever we want to import) by using and coordinating each one’s playing time. 

At the beginning, I have to admit that it was a little complicated to create our first Moovly’s animation, but at the end we get used to its controls. I and my teamwork enjoyed it a lot. Watching this video you will see why.

I would dare to say that to control this animation tool is quite hard-working, but if instead of proposing individual tasks, we propose a collaborative activity in which the students have to use this software in groups, this problem would be solved. As a future teacher I would use this programme to create material to explain abstract concepts. I would also implement this app to challenge the children to make their own animations explaining or putting in practice contents worked in class, as an evidence of what their learned and their abilities to prove it. 

I would like to say that thanks to my classmates’ presentation about the research of how the implement of e-books in pre-school benefit the literacy development; I reflect on the accuracy of educative resources depending on their potential to support children learning. That’s why, I think that StoryJumper is the most useful app to encourage child’s autonomy, because is simple to control and it can include links and support notes in order to make possible that the children find the answer to their doubts by their own. 

Finally, I would also like to comment the webpage “dotsub” which allows us to subtitle videos, creating captions by using our listening skills. I think this tool is very good, but making up my mind, I don’t change my mind: StoryJumper is the most useful for me, it challenge more than one skill.