Animation in Education

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*Skill and Ability improvement - the interactive environment of animation would help the students learn faster and without the complexities in traditional school lectures. (Not that I have anything against school lectures). A book, for instance, can devote several pages describing the architectural design of the Parthenon. It will take several minutes - or even hours - for me to assimilate all those information. But it took me a fraction of that time to absorb the beauty of the Parthenon as I took a Virtual Tour of the place.
· Interactivity - In traditional school lectures, there is a low chance for a shy student to be able to participate in class discussions. If this were the case, the student may learn less from what she could in animation.
· Engagement - Animation, with all the things that make it interesting, would definitely hook its learner because of the stuff that makes it challenging and worthy of a person's time. Since a learner may go back again and again to that program, his/her daily performance is increased.
· Flexibility and safety - Animation provides a hazard-free environment, especially in chemistry experiments that one can redo without injury. And it is flexible enough for a person to learn through discovery; it also shows non-possible matters in real-life learning. In 1987, Nurrenbern and Pickering discovered that students "who were successful in solving numerical chemistry problems did not necessarily understand the molecular concepts underlying these mathematical problems" (Sanger, http://faculty.cns.uni.edu/~sanger/ Review.htm). Realizing the problem, experts started looking at computer animation as a possible solution. They began to see computer animations of chemical processes at the molecular level as a powerful tool for helping instructors "model how they think using microscopic representation for students" (Sanger, http://faculty.cns.uni.edu/~sanger/ Review.htm).
· Motivation - Since this type of education is fun, learners are motivated to learn more and more each day, thus increasing the skills they acquire
· Eliminates Frustration - Learning through animation helps in the maturity of decision-making of the learner. The program adapts to the user's choices and reacts in different ways. In a traditional classroom, students look at teachers as the fount of knowledge. They follow wherever the teacher leads them. With computer animation, the students are provided with options - as to what route they would like to take - in forming and gaining knowledge.
· Practicality - It presents true-to-life situations where adults learn better because they are said to be "practical learners"
· Consistent - All learners from around the globe learn the same skills and principles since only the same program exists in all the countries.
· Immediate feedback - The animation system already provides the feedback for the learner, thus giving information where the learner should improve.
· Attracting and holding attention - It is said that colors attract attention. This standard is important in animation for a learner or student to be able to learn much, much better.
· Showing prototype designs - Animation is a dynamic tool for designing objects that do not yet exist in reality such as how the ideas of architects or engineers come to life.
· Creating models of data - Animation is easily manipulated by the user, therefore for them to become creative and artistic, three-dimensional models can be useful in broadening their imagination
· Showing processes or relationships not usually available - Animation is capable of demonstrating phenomena that are impossible to observe like earthquakes and erosion patterns.
· Isolating specific actions in a complex sequence - Deciphering the whole operation may be hard for a beginner; animation provides the user with parts of the operation where it can be easily understood.


RETRIVED FROM http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00066/content_education.html



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The program is used to reinforce learning of material presented in the class. There are several practice drills in the package which consist of matching pairs of words, multiple choice questions, cloze exercises, and unscrambling jumbled sentences. Student responses are tabulated both for direct student feedback and instructor review. Multicultural education also employs hypermedia. For example, Scali (1994) described a project in which kindergarten students combined African history, communicating through music, and HyperStudio stacks and video. Scali reported that students learned not only the material but also were provided with lessons in friendship and communication. What is important here is the recognition that hypermedia can be used for the purposes of early childhood education and is not just limited to older students. The use of hypermedia in an early childhood education setting has been discussed by Boston (1991).


RETRIVED FROM http://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1681578.html









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