Inquiry Based Learning - ICT Education

Inquiry Based Learning

ICT Education

A very important part of this module is to not the  role of technology and Inquiry Based Learning in education today. This is vitally important in a society where technology is becoming more widely used and promoted through the education system (National Curriculum, 2008).

So what is inquire based learning?

 The above video is a step by step guide of how to implement a inquiry based learning in a classroom environment. 

Inquiry based learning is a complex process where students formulate questions, investigate to research their answers, build new understandings meanings and knowledge the discuss these new leanings with others (Alberta Education Association, 2006). The aim of this type of learning is to give children a opportunity gain a more in depth understanding of a topic rather than a brief overview. Research suggests that by taking the time over each subject that inquiry based learning increase student creativity, independence and problem solving skills and as a result improves student educational achievement

Models.

So can be Inquiry Based Learning be implemented? The approach is supported three key implications for effective instructional practices which can used to put theory to practice in the classroom:

1. 1.Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about the world. This means teaching practices must draw out and work with students preexisting understandings and make student ‘thinking’ visible and central to the learning.
2. 2.Competence in an area of study requires factual knowledge organized around conceptual frameworks to facilitate knowledge retrieval and application. Classroom activities should be designed to develop understanding through in-depth study of curriculum topics.
3. 3.Meta-cognition (thinking about thinking) helps students take control of their learning. Opportunities for students to define learning goals and monitor their own understanding need to be embedded into classroom tasks (Stephenson, 2007).

ICT

As mentioned previously ICT and technology has taken a integral role in the classroom in the last decade. In terms of Inquiry Based Learning this great as children have more resources available to them to work one topic in depth and therefore gain a better understanding.

Smeets (2005) conducted a study investigated how important ICT is to the classroom, he did so by asking 331 teachers to complete a questionnaire. It was concluded that in order to further optimize learning environments in primary education, teachers should be made aware of the potential of ICT to contribute to the power of learning environments and to stimulate pupils’ active and autonomous learning.

Evaluating My Peers Animation Project

Evaluation of Peer's Project

As well as completing my own final animation project it was very important that as a seminar group we took the time to evaluate each others work also 

Group 1 – Life of a Student – Feb and Toni 

Feb and Toni used picture cut outs to create an animation of what the life of a student is like.

• I found that the fact that they used picture cut outs incredibly creative and thought by doing this they were able to use their clear artistic skills to come up with a great animation. 
• Although the clip did prove to be jumpy at some points, the picture cuts proved to be a great way of demonstrating fantastic stop motion. For example they drew and then traced over so image would stay static; such adding different eye placement to show a level of movement. 
• The concept they used was unique concept and nobody had thought to do anything near as similar. As well as this the girls used great music as sound effects to fit their concept well. 

Group 2 -Trystan  – The Lion and The Monkey 

• Trystan planned his animation very well, he drew up a story board to make sure everything fitted to realistic timing. This paid of really well as his sound effects were timed perfectly with what was happening on screen.
• One problem he did encountered was that as he completed it over a couple of days the lighting changed depending on the time of day. However he did make this work in his favour by changing his story around by making morning and night. 
• He chose a fantastic concept and based his story upon the original story of  the ‘Lion and the Mouse’ 
• This is Trystan's finished project below.

Group 3 –The Hungry Caterpillar - Luke, Keyleigh and Andrea 

• Group 3 used the well-known story of the hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle. They were even able to email him and gain his permission for its use in their animation.
• They had a great artistic use of Claymation whereby the caterpillar ate through a leaf for example.
• They did have trouble with the lighting as it changed however similarly to Trystan they used a change of days to overcome the problem. 
• Their animation was a bit jumpy and suffered slightly as this meant that it did lack a level of fluidity. However this was made up by a good use of well timed sound effects and narration. 

My First Animation

My First Animation

In one of Education Futures lectures I got the chance to play around with the software that I'd use to complete my final animation project, Zu3D. I made up the story line as I went along in a bid to some practice of stop motion animation whilst having a bit. I had to use the resources that my lecturer had brought which were some toy men and dinosaurs as well as a paper background. It was a lot of fun! I learnt how to create a title page and that stop motion takes a lot of time and patience, as well as keeping your hands out of the shot! So this is my first animation, title 'Duelling with the Dinosaurs'.

Stop Animation Project

Stop Motion Animation Project

As part of Education Futures module at the Swansea Metropolitan University I had to create my own conceptual stop motion animation. For this I teamed up with my peers Dominic Jame and Rhys Jenkins. Were given full freedom it what resources and tools we could use, we decided we wanted to do something a little bit unique, so we began to research. After brainstorming some ideas we decided to do stop motion animation using Lego figures.

My co-workers Rhys Jenkins and Dom James.

There is a wide range of excellent Lego animations on the internet to become inspired by, so we began to watch these to become inspired as to how we would go about film. One famous Lego YouTube animator we looked at was Michael Hickox, we found is films very amusing and highly professional. The below film is one of my favorites of his titled 'Lego Golf'.

Concept

So we had decided to use Lego as a resource all we had left was to choose a concept to base our animation story on. As we are all students studying Education we thought it would be appropriate to choose Inclusion as this is a big talking point of any educational system. After researching again we found an excellent poem based around the topic of inclusion Randy Basset from the Opening Hearts Inclusion Project in Canada. We emailed him asking for his permission to use his poem and he quickly replied saying yes as long as we sent a finished copy of our work so that he might use on his website.

After this we bought our superhero Lego characters and began filming, they were:-

1. Captain America
2. Iron Man
3. Thor
4. Hawk Eye
5. The Hulk
6. Black Widow
7. Nick Fury

Setting the Scene

For layout we made a cardboard cut to hold the scene together, we found a countryside background and a green Lego floor plate to set the outdoor scene. As for the story we used Randy Basset's poem as a template using each verse of the poem as a basis for the scene. We began filming using the software Zu3D which is a primary education program. We took three pictures of a set scene then moved the Lego characters to their next position and took three pictures again. After we had finished creating all the scenes we added our voices and sound effects.

Problems

The project did take us over ten hours to complete and unfortunately we did encounter some problems along the way.  Firstly we were not sure whether or not it was an issue with Zu3D or the computer itself however we did suffer from the program becoming slow taking pictures. It also often took up to an hour to save our project due to the amount of frames we had to take to complete the animation. Another problem we encountered was the inputting the sound, this was as we found it difficult to import, cut and place the sounds to fit in time with the film.  In conclusion, we as a group all agreed we thoroughly enjoyed the project, however if we were to do a similar one in the future we would research into what other animation software was available to us. 

Finished Project

This is our finished project titled 'Super Inclusion' and I hope you enjoy.

Sound Effects

Sound

"Sound effects play an important role in conveying action. Music helps express emotion" - Michael Geisler

Music plays a vital role when telling a visual story, whether it be through film, television, thearte or animation.  It allows the audience to set the mood of the story in their mind and gain a clear picture of the scene. Take a horror movie for example:-

 We would not expect this scary scene (above) to be combined  by cheerful and joyful music. So therefore unless the piece is satircal, it would make sense that the music fits the scene. As for this picture, we'd expect sharp violins mixed with low monotones notes. This would be to create the feel of tension in our minds and make us think something scary is going to happen.

The Three Purposes of Sound Effects 

In the world of film and television there are three functions for sound effects

1. Simulating Reality - This is especially important when discussing animation as it is essentially fake and often fictional.  By applying sound effects to the film a level of realism is introduced, concluding that for the audience to believe they must hear it as well as see it.
2. Creating Illusion - Putting sound effects into a film in some respects is an art in it self. By doing so the audience and be tricked into believing something is there that's not or something is about to happen. For example a safari group are travelling through the jungle when a lions roar is heard. Although there is no lion to be seen, the audience are now under the illusion that there is a lion somewhere in the scene
3. Mood - I briefly discussed the use of this above in our 'scary castle scene' and this is arguably the most important purpose of sound effects. This is when sound effects are not just used as a mechanical tool but can used both creatively  and artistically. For example a scene is set in a park where a small dog is yapping change the sound effect to a big doberman dog loudly barking and just by this small changed of sound a entirely different scene is created. 

Kerner, Marvin M: The Art of the Sound Effects Editor (1989),  p 11- 15