ANIMATING LEARNING

Project Title	Animating Learning
Project Team	Dr Chris Reading
Period	July 07 – October 2007
Funding Agency	SiMERR National Centre
Organisational Base	SiMERR National Centre

Description

This project aimed to provide professional learning for teachers on producing animations and on planning and implementing student learning experiences that involve producing animations. Research associated with the project was designed to address the research question: What are the changes in attitudes to “ICT in learning” that take place when a teacher engages in a professional learning activity that supports learning about animation and implementation in teaching? This project was designed to improve the teachers’ skills and confidence with using ICT in learning, in particular preparing animations as a way of supporting students’ learning; and to inform research about the nature of the changes in attitude that take place as teachers engage in the process of learning about the animation process and implementing the process in their teaching.

Teachers from a cluster of four small schools worked together to learn to produce animations. The professional learning activities included a full day workshop on producing animations and then two after-school workshops on assessing the animations and planning for implementation in student learning experiences. These professional learning activities provided the teachers with the opportunity for mutual professional learning support and the opportunity to collaborate in planning the learning experiences to be implemented in their individual schools.

Every effort was made to plan the student learning experiences so that hardware and software already in the schools could be utilised. Students in the schools produced animations as part of their learning and the teachers were provided with technical and implementation advice when they came together for professional learning opportunities and also during in-school visits by a support person. The animations were shared for peer-assessment at the end of the project using an audience response system.

The impact of the experience on teachers’ attitudes to ICT in learning was assessed using a questionnaire completed by teachers at the beginning and end of the project and learning journals completed by the teachers during the project as, and when, they felt the need. Changes in attitudes to ICT in learning will be reported at the Australian Computers in Education Conference in 2008.

Participants

Findings

Outcomes

Impact

Related documents

Click here to download this infosheet.