Session 9

The trend of recent years has been for schools to use a range of media rather than simply relying in text based information (Lowe, 2003). I believe stop-motion animation can hugely influence creative technological learning because it "can help learners come to understand complex ideas more easily" (Ainsworth, 2008). There are many different schools of thought in this regard, some believe that animations have a motivating effect which can help people learn (Rieber, 1991), whilst others claim that "there are specific computational properties of animations that match the cognitive demands of a learning task" (Tversky et al, 2002). Contrary to those points, some view animation with more scepticism and recommend limiting their use. They tend to cite that learners have difficulty processing animation and applying it properly (Lowe, 2003). The success of stop motion animation in modern cinema also has an effect on children's learning as children would see these films, and if it gets replicated in the classroom then I think they would take notice and pay attention. It is a great, informal and fun way to pass on information and to educate. Sometimes in the classroom, the teacher speaking alone can be quite 'boring' for a learner and so a teacher should make the most of any opportunity to make the lesson more visualy attractive. It is becoming more apparent that there are different factors which influence the way people learn with animations. These can include: 


Cognitive Explanations
Motor Explanations 
Perceptual Explanations 

 At the moment, critics feel that more research needs to be done in order to analyse the positive influence of animation in education.