Stopmotion Name Movies
Posted by: dogtrax in Adventures in StopMotion Animation, my classroomWe dug right into technology in our first days of school as I had students use Pivot Stickfigure to create short stopmotion animation movies using the letters of their first name. You should have seen the engagement and concentration, and heard the laughter. And you should have seen students reaching over to show another a trick they discovered or share their movies in progress with each other.
It seemed like a real “bonding over technology” period of time and I can already gauge who is comfortable with working on the computer, who is not, and who can meet deadlines and who will have trouble with deadlines. That was part of my learning experience.
I also began showing the movies to the other sixth grade classes (this particular project was just with my homeroom class to start the year) as way to signal that we will be getting creative this year. And my class got raves and applause from the others. Nice.
Peace (in the motion),
Kevin
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September 5th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Congratulations! These are awesome! I can’t wait to share with my teachers and students.
I agree that technology can help develop skills in creativity and personal management of learning and time. My students used to love working with stopmotion (of the claymation kind) and would have to be ‘kicked’ out to have their recess and lunch break. They used to get so caught up in it that they would want to keep going forever. There was always a buzz of excitement, mixed in with frustration, followed by an amazing sense of achievement once completed and shared with others.
Please pass on to your students that I think their stopmotions are fantastic.
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September 5th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
This is great. Love how easy and intuitive the Pivot program is. I plan to use this at school as long as the download is not blocked.
A further question: Can I have students make a stop motion video with just a simple webcam? Is there some kind of free software that I need or that you recommend? Thanks.
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dogtrax Reply:
September 6th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Are you on Macs or PCs?
I use a stopmotion freeware program with webcams called Stopmotion Animator for PCs. http://www.clayanimator.com/english/stop_motion_animator.html
If you are interested, we are searching for more classrooms to become part of The Longfellow Ten. http://lf10.wordpress.com/
Kevin
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