As part of my role as Technology Coach in my district, I helped the 7th grade math team put together a geometry animation project that had two goals:
1. Incorporate some technology into class
2. Meet some of the district ITLS (Info Tech & Literacy Standards) that we recently deployed by grade level
This post contains all the materials we used so others can replicate this project.
BACKGROUND: 7th Math had just completed a unit on geometric transformations which included looking at shapes and understanding what the following are: Rotation, Reflection, Dilation (change in size), and Translation. The team had suggested some kind of "flip book" activity to have the students show a shape performing these operations. Through some recommendations from other tech integrators on Twitter, I came across www.doink.com
DoInk (pronounced Do Ink, not "doink" like the students kept saying :) allows you to create a drawing frame by frame flip book style and then "play" that drawing so you see the animation occurring like a flip book. DoInk's site says they rate themselves as a PG-13 site so we drafted a letter to send home to explain the project and to get parent permission. Feel free to download and use this parent letter:
DoInk Parent Letter
In class, we created a half sheet of the "registration" directions and passed these out to the students. Feel free to take and use these directions:
DoInk Math Animation Project Insturctions
I also created a brief video tutorial and put it online on YouTube and Vimeo so that if students forgot what to do and wanted a refresher to complete their project at home, they could watch the video. We only had one class period to dedicate to the project and wanted the students to still be successful in completing the proejct. I tagged both videos as "fpmsmath" as one word and included that in the directions so students could find the video easily if needed.
When performing the demo for the students, I wanted to have a finished product so they could see what the final product should look like. This is this sample I created ahead of time for the students:
FPMS Math Sample by fpmsstudent, made at DoInk.com
As for the assessment piece of this, one of the math teachers created the half sheet rubric below that we put on the back of the DoInk directions sheet.
DoInk Math Animation Rubric
As part of the publishing process, we had students tag their animation with their teacher's name and "10" after it. The 10 was added to represent 2010 so if the math teachers repeat this project next spring, they can use 11 and so on so all search results aren't jumbled together.
Overall, a lot of upfront work, but the payoff was great. We told the students they could draw a quick object and then animate it. Many of the students got very creative and it was great to see them applying their math knowledge to this project that incorprated using technology. To see some of their projects, head to the DoInk Search page and search for Nackel10, Zomboracz10, or Hembre10. Many students even went on to create their own animations after completing this project.
A special thanks to Karen and Aaron with www.doink.com. I had emailed them for some help and suggestions and they gave me some great (and FAST) feedback as we put the project together. I got in contact with Karen through Twitter and DoInk has a Twitter account to follow for recent news and updates as well.
This post contains all the materials we used so others can replicate this project.
BACKGROUND: 7th Math had just completed a unit on geometric transformations which included looking at shapes and understanding what the following are: Rotation, Reflection, Dilation (change in size), and Translation. The team had suggested some kind of "flip book" activity to have the students show a shape performing these operations. Through some recommendations from other tech integrators on Twitter, I came across www.doink.com
DoInk (pronounced Do Ink, not "doink" like the students kept saying :) allows you to create a drawing frame by frame flip book style and then "play" that drawing so you see the animation occurring like a flip book. DoInk's site says they rate themselves as a PG-13 site so we drafted a letter to send home to explain the project and to get parent permission. Feel free to download and use this parent letter:
DoInk Parent Letter
In class, we created a half sheet of the "registration" directions and passed these out to the students. Feel free to take and use these directions:
DoInk Math Animation Project Insturctions
I also created a brief video tutorial and put it online on YouTube and Vimeo so that if students forgot what to do and wanted a refresher to complete their project at home, they could watch the video. We only had one class period to dedicate to the project and wanted the students to still be successful in completing the proejct. I tagged both videos as "fpmsmath" as one word and included that in the directions so students could find the video easily if needed.
When performing the demo for the students, I wanted to have a finished product so they could see what the final product should look like. This is this sample I created ahead of time for the students:
FPMS Math Sample by fpmsstudent, made at DoInk.com
As for the assessment piece of this, one of the math teachers created the half sheet rubric below that we put on the back of the DoInk directions sheet.
DoInk Math Animation Rubric
As part of the publishing process, we had students tag their animation with their teacher's name and "10" after it. The 10 was added to represent 2010 so if the math teachers repeat this project next spring, they can use 11 and so on so all search results aren't jumbled together.
Overall, a lot of upfront work, but the payoff was great. We told the students they could draw a quick object and then animate it. Many of the students got very creative and it was great to see them applying their math knowledge to this project that incorprated using technology. To see some of their projects, head to the DoInk Search page and search for Nackel10, Zomboracz10, or Hembre10. Many students even went on to create their own animations after completing this project.
A special thanks to Karen and Aaron with www.doink.com. I had emailed them for some help and suggestions and they gave me some great (and FAST) feedback as we put the project together. I got in contact with Karen through Twitter and DoInk has a Twitter account to follow for recent news and updates as well.
Great project. Please let me know if you take and use these resources. I'd love to hear how it worked out for you.
This is excellent! Thanks for the post.
ReplyDelete@markbrumley
This looks awesome! I will have to try it next year!
ReplyDelete