When Harrison Park Visual Arts Teacher Dani Mitchell contacted Verizon Innovative Learning Schools (VILS) Technology Integration Coach Dr. Brenda Carpenter, she knew she wanted to do a stop-motion project with her middle school students. As a first year teacher, Dani did not know what resources were available, but she was inspired by the strata-cut method developed by local artist David Daniels.
With some thoughtful collaborative planning, Brenda was able to help Dani acquire tripods for her class set of iPads and the Stop Motion Studio app so that her students could create their own stop motion videos, as well as secure a visit by strata cut found David Daniels.
Learn from the Expert
Students had the opportunity to learn about and try out strata cut stop motion animation directly from the founder - David Daniels! He demonstrated how to make amazing stop motion videos like those he created for MTV and current musicians such as HARDY. Right in front of their eyes he created a blinking eye animation using the same app they were using in class - Stop Motion Studio.
Thanks to Van Aken, 80 pounds of Claytoon clay were donated to Harrison Park visual arts students. Fortunately, Stop Motion Studio is also available for Chromebooks, so students can use their school devices and the donated clay to develop their creativity beyond the classroom!
Students worked in teams to create their own story boards and backdrops for their movies. They then used clay, cardboard, paint, wire and other materials to build props that moved to tell the story. After a lot of collaboration and cooperation, students used the Stop Motion Studio app to record individual frames and then combine them to make a complete animation series.
Final Student Products with Behind the Scenes Footage
Resources
Want to try this yourself?
Contact Dr. Brenda Carpenter (VILS Technology Integration Coach) or anyone on the Learning Technologies Team if you want to try stop motion animation or if you have your own idea for technology integration that you would like to try!
Standards & Frameworks
ISTE Student Standards
- 1.4 Innovative Designer Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
- 1.6 Creative Communicator Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
National Visual Arts Standards
- VA:Pr4.1.6a: Analyze similarities and differences associated with preserving and presenting two dimensional, three dimensional, and digital artwork.
- VA:Pr4.1.7a: Compare and contrast how technologies have changed the way artwork is preserved, presented, and experienced.
- A:Pr4.1.8a: Develop and apply criteria for evaluating a collection of artwork for presentation.
Studio Habits of Mind
- Stretch & Explore: Learning to reach beyond one's capacities, to explore playfully without a preconceived plan, and to embrace the opportunity to learn from mistakes and accidents.
- Engage and Persist: Learning to embrace problems of relevance within the art world and/or of personal importance, to develop focus conducive to working and persevering at tasks.
- Understand Art Worlds: Learning about art history and current practice, and learning to interact as an artist with other artists and within the broader society.
Triple E Framework
- Enhance: Value-added enhancement of learning through technology is when the tool is somehow aiding, assisting, scaffolding learning in a way that could not easily be done with traditional methods. This is the level where learning can become personalized and more relatable to the learner. This is when technology is really starting to change how learning occurs to make it more meaningful to the learner
Portland Public Schools Instructional Framework
- 3: Deeply Engaging: Students do the majority of the cognitive work, supported by instruction that is relevant and meaningful to their lives and connected to the real world.
- 3.7: Students are actively engaged in the cognitive work of the lesson, through reading, writing, speaking, listening, inquiry or other modalities.
- 3.8: Students persist, authentically grappling with grade-level content, revising their work and thinking, even when confronted with mistakes, uncertainty, or challenge.
- 3.9: Students demonstrate developmentally appropriate social-emotional competencies by collaborating productively with peers and adults to navigate interpersonal conflicts that arise within the learning community.
- 3.10: Students dialogue with and ask questions of peers and teachers to clarify their understanding and extend their learning.