As we worked on our changemaking project in Group 1 some of the pupils explored making animated gifs to communicate their messages visually on social media and on the screen at schools.
Learning a new skill
We began just before Christmas by using the making of Christmas cards using Keynote on ipads as a way of learning how to make animated slides. The pupils quickly picked up how to make objects, letters and words and animate them on one keynote slide which could be saved and shared as a animated gif.
Here are some examples of the Christmas cards the pupils made.
Applying it to our changemaking project
On International Day 2 some pupils began using the same approach to put together the key message of their changemaking project. They were experimenting with trying to define their idea or advice and design an animation to communicate it. In this group the children wanted to help those who could not sleep because they played video games or used screens too close to bedtime.
We had planned to complete these on International Day 3 and use them along with EyeJack to add some AR but circumstances changed so at present they are incomplete. We hope to use this approach in the subsequent years of the DLAB project.
Ideas and resources that supported this learning
I learned how to make animated gifs in Keynote by taking part in the #keynotedoodleaday challenge on Twitter led by Simon Pile (@Mrpielee) and Alice Nutt (@alicenutt1). This was based around an ibook (Doodle-a-day) that can be downloaded from the Apple Book Store which had templates and resources that supported each daily activity.