Lights, Camera, Animation!
With four sessions run over two weeks, students from kinder to year six were engaged, educated and entertained when the NFSA, in conjunction with Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre, went live with our first classroom-based educational videoconference Let’s Get Animated.
Let’s Get Animated is a videoconference program for primary school-aged students that was inspired by a successful onsite education program for schools visiting Canberra, Animation Showdown.
The 45-minute program was developed around the New South Wales Creative Arts and Science and Technology curricula and features a selection of clips that explore the evolution of animation technology and art, the viewing of animation artefacts and the creation of a thaumatrope (a simple two frame pre-cinema toy).
This pilot program was developed to explore the possibilities of classroom-based videoconference education for those groups unable to visit the NFSA’s Canberra headquarters, giving students from regional areas – most of whom had never heard of NFSA, let alone visited it – the opportunity to actively explore, engage and interpret the collection. By having an NFSA educator run the session, the teacher and students had access to an expert who not only curated moving image clips but was able to facilitate discussions and answer sometimes sticky questions.
Despite the nerves about presenting in front of a camera and how we would work around image and sound delays, the sessions ran smoothly and the feedback from schools was overwhelmingly positive. Students were often surprised at how much they enjoyed exploring older animation clips and thrilled at creating their own thaumatropes. Comments such as ‘That was cool – can we do it again?’ (Jock, year 3 student) and ‘Can we please make some of our own animations?’ (Isabelle, year 6 student) provided strong anecdotal evidence of the program’s success.
Furthermore, teachers were impressed with the range of clips and activities as well as the engagement of their students. Peter, a primary school teacher, emailed us to say ‘I have been involved in several video conferences now and I was particularly impressed with the quality of resources and the preparation that had gone into developing the mixed series of activities. I will definitely look at future VCs from NFSA as students were engaged and inspired.’
After the success of our pilot series, the NFSA education team is looking to work with Questacon again in 2013 to co-develop further videoconference explorations into the science and technology of moving image and recorded sound. As with Let’s Get Animated, these sessions will feature interesting clips, amazing artefacts and the opportunity to create something special. Most importantly, however, these programs will again give students in regional and remote areas the opportunity to interact with the NFSA in an engaging and inspiring way.
More to explore
Best of Australian animated short films
Enjoy a comprehensive selection of Australian animated short films in our new curated collection.
Australian award-winning animated short films
There are over 1,000 Australian animated short films in the NFSA collection, with the earliest here dating back to the 1920s.
Australian films at the Oscars
The first Australian film nominated for an Academy Award ('Oscar') won - Kokoda Front Line! in 1942.