January 2006 — Kids on Technology
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Animating the Learning Environment
A sample project created using animation/simulation tools.
Using animation/simulation tools is important to us because we can learn better from creating instead of just listening. It's a more fun way to learn when you work on a computer instead of books and notebooks. Notebooks don't let you add sounds, videos, movement, and animation to your work. We also help each other learn by playing the games that all of the other students make. And being able to use these programs to make games also gives us more time on a PC, which helps our computer skills.
It's funny that some of us students know more about animation/simulation tools and how to use them than some teachers do. The teachers who don't integrate computers into their lessons are the ones who don't know as much.
I think they don't use computers because they are afraid of not knowing what to do or say if we ask them something they don't know. I think this has a bad effect on us because we are limited to the way teachers teach.
If I were a teacher, I would give my students the chance to practice every topic with animation/simulation activities. I would prepare games for them to prove what they have learned every year, and I would make a CD with all of their creations as a reward for hard work.
Students at my school are being prepared for college and the working world by learning the technology skills we will need. But I know that I still have a lot to learn. Animation/simulation tools can help prepare us for the future because they make us think creatively.
Paola Luconi Galva is a fifth-grader at Saint Jude School in Santa Ana, Costa Rica.
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