Idioteex

Posts Tagged ‘Education’

The Indian animation market, fairly “static” until a few years ago and activity on this

front only began in earnest in the later half of the 90s when animation studios made an appearance in the country and the industry developed a more serious, export oriented outlook. India is now waking up to a host of global opportunities that promise a lot of “action” for the country’s leading design specialists.

According to NASSCOM study, the forces that are shaping the development of the animation industry in India include technical manpower to meet the 2-D and 3-D animation requirements, lower costs of animation production, the expected demand from domestic Indian television channels and the formation of domestic animation studios and training centres.

The animation market in India today is characterized by the presence of multiple players including Crest Communications, Films Division Maya Entertainment, Silvertoon Studio, 2NZ Studio, Cine Magin, Climb Films, UTV Toons, Zee Institute of Creative Arts (ZICA), Digital Studio, Pentamedia Graphics, Prasad Studios, Acropetal, jadooWorks, Color Chips, Heart Animation, Ocean Park, Padmalaya Telefilms, and Toonz Animation, Magic Shop, Moving Pictures, among others. These companies are spread across cities such as Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram.

A snapshot of the Indian animation market scenario in the 90’s:

1. The merger of two existing and leading design studios-Ram Mohan Biographic and United Studios-made available for the first time, infrastructure and resources required for animation. Design studios began teaming up with overseas animation firms, taking the co-producing or subcontracting route, and in this way upgraded their technical skill sets

2. By 1993, there were around 15 animation studies in the country, with three to four using IT tools and techniques. These studios were coming up in cities such as Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and New Delhi.  Read more...

We have come a long way in the past decades regarding our knowledge, experience, and thoughts on the potential of information technology for enhancing young children’s development. The world in which we live is changing rapidly and the field of education is experiencing these changes at an even faster pace. The impact of technology

on children’s education has been tremendous.  Even more impressive is the growth in the use of multimedia within the child education sector which has accelerated in recent years and looks set for continued expansion in the future. When information technology products were introduced in the early 1980s, the debate centered on the question, “Are computers good for young children?” In those days, there were two schools of thought. While the majority regarded computers as the solution for many problems in the field of education, a few expressed concern about the supposed effects.

Since then, by adopting the various technological tools that were available, we have been able to enhance the amount of their education that kids retain. Kids’ learning has moved out of its box ever since e-learning revolutionized the education system. With e-learning, kids can get past learning for tests and learn for pleasure. Thus, over the years, more and more e-learning tools have been created to provide more enjoyable and interactive ways of learning. One such creation is Animation.

But what role will animation play in kids’ education? Why should we consider it to be so potentially helpful?  Read more...

In more recent years a certain Nick Parks reinvigorated 3d animation with his Wallace and Gromit characters. This form of 3D animation is often referred to as Claymation or Clay Animation. While Nick was not the first by any means to introduce claymation it certainly brought in back in to mainstream entertainment. In 1912 one of the first claymation movies using stop motion was released to great critical acclaim. It was called “Modeling Extraordinary”. In 1916, the first female animator, Helena Smith Dayton, began experimenting with clay stop motion. She released her first film in 1917, Romeo and Juliet.

Claymation in School

The introduction of computers to schools at all levels has brought the art of stop motion animation and claymation software within reach of all students. The prevalence of inexpensive stop motion animation software allows the student and teacher to become active participants in ICT that is both creative and more alive than ever before.

In general while students have good basic ICT skills and an interest in technology. ICT is not as integrated a component of a school curriculum as it should be. ICT is often judged as having a narrow focus, emphasising the tool rather than the curriculum or learning outcomes.

With 3D stop motion animation claymation and the right stop motion software activities can combine a number of ICT methodologies. For example “audio documentary creation”, “storyboarding” and “audio soundtrack creation” are all used with animation to create a coherent end result. Evidence from a wide range of schools participating in claymation animation projects observe students successfully bringing a numberous aspects of ICT together to complete projects.

The projects require students to cooperate in small teams.

Music and arts education are valuable components of academic instruction. And they become even more valuable when they are used towards the resolution of crisis situations that affect and traumatized children around the globe. Creative expression has both educational and psychological significance for children that have suffered natural disasters, wars, and violent acts, serving as a way through which people of diverse cultures can interact and unite in their shared humanity.

Teachers use art and music to cultivate communication, social abilities and cognitive emotions to increase cooperation, self-confidence and self-esteem. Through the creation of singing, moving, and listening stimulus to music, a broad range of emotional, cognitive and physical abilities of children are brought out and help them to learn new skills.

Creative therapy can be expressed in a variety of forms including music and movement therapy, writing techniques and play therapies. Aiming to provide children with a means of expression that can help them express their emotions about their individual experiences while using their imagination and the creativity of the therapist, creative therapy offers a sense of accomplishment.

Music and movement therapies have a therapeutic effect on children. By addressing physical, psychological, cognitive and/or social functioning, music and movement act as a powerful medium that provides support and encouragement to each traumatized child in the effort to acquire new skills and abilities. Movement therapies transform feelings into movement that helps children release their stress and express their emotions. On the other hand, music, because of its ability to touch each person in a different way and often in many different ways, creates the grounds for new learning opportunities and most importantly, for leading a normal life.  Read more...

Music education has been included in many curricula in different nations around the globe. However, since not all students are musically-inclined, not all of them are motivated to learn music. As a result, they are no longer excited to experience formal music schooling inside their classrooms. With this conflict of interests, music teachers are then challenged or pressured on how they could make their students learn and love music at the same time.

To basically adhere to the problem, they are determined to research the latest music teachers’ resources. Since both teaching and learning are two dynamic processes, music teachers and their students should meet half way – adjusting to the kind of individuals they are.

And because they are up to music education, these music teachers need to update their lists and records with the most modern trends and techniques, which are believed to be very effective and influential with the kind of students they have right now. From time to time, there could have been new music teachers’ resources that could improve their teaching strategies as well as their way of relating to their dear students.

Today, music educators incorporate theories and application to give a well-rounded musical experience and to teach music in various perspectives intended for international understanding. To meet many demands and expectations of their students, music teachers keep on upgrading their available music teachers’ resources by doing some researches over the Internet. In just a matter of few clicks, they would be aware of what is really the latest in the music academe as well as the newest style and approach in teaching that they can utilize in their everyday instruction.  Read more...