Sound in animation

"Sound effects play an important role in conveying action. Music helps express emotion."

          Michael Geisler

Sound was first introduced to films in 1920's by the Warner Brothers. Since then sound and music has become an important part in assisting telling a story in films and animation.

 The music and sound adds to set the mood and atmosphere, helping the audience to convey whats happen and help them connect with the characters emotions.In some animations sound is used  to help bring the characters to life. Today if cartoons lacked sound, I think it would be hard to keep the audiences interest as it could be perceived as boring.

In groups of two's or three's our task was to create a podcast using audacity. Personally it took a while to understand the controls and settings, and I found the program rather confusing. However, we were able to make a podcast based on a topic of our choice, entertainment news.

Working with Rhodri and Caroline we created a podcast called "Global News". Whilst making the podcast we experiences some issues, stopping and starting the recording at the right time caused a few problems and took a few tries to perfect.

Within the app there's multiple features which ables you to change the voice by changing the tone and pitch. However, this takes time to master and can become frustrating as you could end up sounding like a chipmunk.

You'll be able to find the podcast on Rhodri's blog by following the link below.

http://educationfutures9.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/global-news.html

You can download Audacity by following this link  audacity.sourceforge.net/

Animation for learning?

Since the early 1980's animation has been used in learning, with the continuous evolving of technology and learners ability to use the software, education through animation has become increasingly popular.

One of the reasons as to why animation has become so popular is the belief that it can help learners understand and process difficult topics or subjects easier than the traditional teaching.(Ainsworth, 2008) But does animation help learners? If so how?

Today more and more schools are using animation within education and learning as an alternative method. Learning can be seen as a complicated process by some and can find the process of understanding and obtain the knowledge difficult. Every individual is different and unique which means we all learn in different ways, therefore having their own preferred learning style. 

Visual learners who 'show me and I understand' will benefit from learning a topic through animation. Using diagrams, images and charts will help them with the knowledge.

Auditory learners tend to benefit from the most traditional teaching styles.

Kinesthetic learners tend to be 'more hands on', they learn through experimenting and doing so animation can be used to help these type of learners too.

The way an individual absorbs, processes, comprehends and retains information is important. The Educational theorist Neil Flemmings explains the learning styles in his VARK theory. 

References

Ainsworth, S. (2008) 'How do animations Influence Learning?', in D. Robinson and G. Schraw (eds.) Current Perspective on Cognition, Learning, and Instruction: Recent Innovations in Educational Technology that Facilitate Student Learning

Lowe, R. K. (2003) Animation and Learning: Selective Processing of Information in Dynamic Graphics. Learning and Instruction