Bev's ETEC 533 Blog

This was an interesting group of interviews with teachers- in-training who were developing slow motion units to go with the science units( elementary) they would be teaching on their practicums. The basic premise behind this type of activity was to demonstrate and perhaps reinforce basic science concepts through animations.

Very little of what I saw in these interviews convinced me that this would be a good use of technology or technology that would “count” in a science class. The slow motion activity is a very time laborious one. One of the student teachers pointed out that this activity was extremely time consuming taking upwards of 6 or more hours. She didn’t think she would spend the time with a class or even on her own.

The concepts that the students were working on could be presented in other much more effective ways with-out spending so much time. One of the students was going to have the students colour fish and then they would animate the coloured fish and tell a story. Colouring fish may help to develop sorting concepts in very small children, but there are probably much better hands-on activites that would accomplish this in a much shorter time period. This might be a more appropriate language arts activity. Another student felt putting together an animation of coloured pictures of animals moving was a worth-while activity as the students got to see the animals move. There is a wealth of videos out there that will show animals moving in their natural environment. Taking valuable time in class to create this might have some benefits but I don’t think they will lead to a deeper understanding of science.

I think that creating slow-motion animations can be a very creative and fun process for students. I have had students create slow-motion animations using Lego to animate a story they have written. They can incredibly creative and appropriate for a language arts. I am just not convinced that this is the best way to enhance learning in the science class.