Literacy with ICT
iStopMotion: From Time Lapse to Claymation
This is an excellent little application to play around with if you've ever wanted to try your hand at stop motion animation (claymation) or time lapse photography. On this page, you will find some very basic examples of videos that you can create using iStopMotion. While claymation and time lapse are two very different photo techniques, iStopMotion makes it very easy to produce video clips that can be viewed as is, or they could be imported into a program like iMovie, where voiceovers, transitions and various video effects could be applied.
Time Lapse Photography
the lookout
To create this video clip, I - balanced my laptop precariously over the edge of a cliff for twenty-five minutes ;-} - plugged in a digital video camera (it was an iSight...) - opened up the application iStopMotion. - chose to create this video with a frame rate of 15 frames per second, meaning that one second of video is created with fifteen still images - had iStopMotion take a picture automatically every twenty seconds.
Since it took five minutes to create each second of this video clip (3 pictures per minute =15 frames in five minutes), this five second video clip took 25 minutes to create... how's that for incorporating math :-) |
tomatoes
I came into the classroom Monday morning after a long weekend and found my classroom science fair project in a terrible state. Watch these plants revive themselves in this video...
This time I used a slighly lower frame rate, so each second of video is comrpised of only 12 still pictures, or frames. To create the illusion of this plant moving, I configured iStopMotion to take one picture automatically every minute.
Since it took 12 minutes to create each second of this video clip (12 fps), this five second video clip took exactly one hour to create...
Sharing cool little video clips with students and discussing how they are created is real-life problem solving! What a great way to motivate students, incorporating videos into this into your math lessons :-) |
Both of the above examples were created the same way. A digital video camera was hooked up to the laptop (MacBook users can even use the built-in iSight camera...), the laptop was left in the exact same position for a period of time, and it was set up to take photographs automatically at regular intervals of time. With iStopMotion, you can choose how often the photos are taken, whether it's a number of seconds, minutes, hours, days, or even weeks! This magical photographic technique is made quite effortless with the technology you currently have available. You can capture many remarkable events like flowers blooming, clouds moving, the sun setting, baby chicks emerging from eggs, etc...
Stop Motion Animation
All of these examples of stop motion animation, or claymation, were created by groups of students working together. Once they've been show the basics of iStopMotion, students can easily setup all of the hardware they need, and configure the software they need, to create unique and original videos of their own.
In this case, each student in the classroom created their own character and they storyboarded various stories together. Each group planned and created several video clips to 'illustrate' the significant events from their story.
All of the short video clips that are created can easily be imported into iMovie to record voices, created titles, adjust the speed, etc... Using this technique with students could give them a very powerful way to demonstrate their critical and creative thinking skills.
The use of claymation projects in the classroom is a powerful motivator for student learning. This technique being used in the classroom can incorporate outcomes from all curricular areas, at all grade levels. Furthermore, it will address numerous LwICT skills as identified in the Literacy with ICT continuum. I hope that these short video clips will challenge you to think about how you could utilize claymation or time lapse to facilitate student learning in your classroom...
