Ralleia Experimental Primary Schools
Animation after-class club
Subject: Algorithmic thinking - basic programming concepts
​
Teacher:Petraki Evangelia
Students from class D to F
​
Objectives
The objectives of the animation after class club are to teach students about the traditional and modern types of animation. Students, apart from creating stop-motion, object and clay animation they learn how they can create animation by writing computer programs using different programming environments.
Specifically the objectives of these lessons are:
-
learn students about algorithms
-
use algoritmic thinking to improve students' critical thinking and their ability to solve problems
-
learn how to solve a problem and structure the solution through distinct and well-defined steps
-
use scratch and other programming environments to create animations
-
learn object-oriented programming (OOP) to create animations about ICT, Maths and other subjects.
One of the aims of object oriented programming is to think about programs more like the real world. Real world consists of different objects, and since most programs are concerned with modelling something in the real world it is important to think that the virtual world created by a program is also made up of objects. Objects can be people, buildings, vehicles etc and they have their own attributes – something that makes this one different from the next. For example, people have eye colour, ages and heights, aeroplanes have flight numbers and destinations, and so on. If two objects have the same state then they will look identical, just like two identical twins appear to the same person. They may act the same and look the same but they are really two completely different people. The values for attributes for virtual objects are stored in variables. Objects have methods that define their behaviour, for example people can walk, talk, run etc.
Some objects in Web Cartoon Maker
Object Oriented Programming is consider as a difficult subject for elementary school students. In fact it is not so difficult; students can easily realize the concepts of OOP because they are similar to the real world. With the appropriate worksheets students can easily write programs and improve their critical and algorithmic thinking and their programming skills.
Students from animation after-class club, apart from Scratch, learn different programming environments like, Alice, and Web Cartoon Maker. Web Cartoon Maker is a compiler which compiles simple C++ scripts into animated cartoons. Students learn how to define objects and program their behaviour to act in animations. They face difficlties when they have to write their first C++ program in Web Cartoon Maker but they overcome these difficulties after the 2nd or 3rd animation.
The following animation was created using Web Cartoon Maker and Stykz.
Animated Video created using Animaker - https://www.animaker.com