Typically, it’s the teacher that teaches the students. In Rita Giannakakis’s class at Holy Family Catholic School in Australia, the “flipped classroom approach” is occasionally used, meaning that no teaching has to be done at first because the students drive their own learning.
How does this work? One day, one of Rita’s students came to school and showed the class what he had been exploring at home – iStopMotion! After a discussion, Rita set him up to do a workshop with two other students because she believes that students learn best from each other. Here’s the kicker. It all worked out so well that Rita decided to integrate iStopMotion lessons into her classroom. She documented the whole process on the class blog, ½ G Blog.
“The students were engaged with the first finished iStopMotion video, made by four students, and then they worked in pairs and groups to explore and investigate how to make one themselves,” Rita says. “They learned from each other and through exploration. It is very user friendly – my students are aged seven to eight years, and they started to work the program and its functions right away. They were very excited!”
After teaching themselves through trial and error and completing a rough iStopMotion video, the students worked in small groups with Rita to create their “good copy.” Check out the students making their iStopMotion videos here!
Rita’s iStopMotion lessons included a comprehensive evaluation on how each student felt about the program. She then came up with a blog post detailing their thoughts. Here’s what some of the iStopMotion superstars had to say:
Terry: It was nice because it lets you do a lot of stuff.
Lyen: It was easy to learn because all you actually have to do is press a red button and save it. When I went to school I showed it to Finn and Bailey and it was a little bit hard to teach them but when I finished I checked it and they did it by themselves.
Finn: I thought it was tricky but I learned fast and it can do amazing things.
Nathan: It is good because it wasn’t real but I ate a glue stuck but I actually dropped it. I learned to make a magic trick with it.
Bailey: My first try, it was a bit hard and I didn’t know what to do but when my friends helped me it was easy. I did a magic trick with a blanket. I then started to teach myself and now my videos are nice and funny.
Keyu: When I first did an iStopMotion, Lyen showed and helped me and I tried to do it by myself and I did it. My favorite thing is that it is like magic. Every time I show my videos to my Mum, she laughs. Everyone can learn it if they try and my teacher tells me to try.
Loveleen: When I watched the video from my friends it seemed hard but it wasn’t when I did my own. It was tricky but fun and I liked watching my video.
Check out a compilation of ½ G’s first iStopMotion attempts above! And be sure to check out the class’s final projects below! Happy animating!
½ G's Final Projects: