Developing Visual Literacy in the classroom with Blender
The Macquairie ICT Innovation Centre in Sydney, Australia has published a series of freely introductory video tutorials for high school students.
Many high school students are 3D consumers; whether this be through gaming, motion pictures or the internet. The opportunity for students to create, interpret, problem-solve and communicate using the language of 3D design is made possible through Blender.
As part of The Technology Leaders Project with Macquairie ICT Innovation Centre (Sydney, Australia), a resource package has been developed for students and teachers. The package aims to introduce design elements and principles to high school students (ages 11 to 15) and fast track the use of Blender as a tool in developing their visual literacy skills.
A number of schools have been involved in trailing the video tutorials which are also ideal for teachers who have a limited background in technology. The video tutorials are between 2 and 4 minutes in length and can be used as a stand-alone resource or in conjunction with the teaching and learning sequence supplied. The video tutorials relate to Blender versions 2.48a or 2.49.
The package is in the process of being uploaded to Macquairie ICT Innovation Centre’s wiki. The video tutorials are now available (stream or download).
Student samples will be uploaded to the wiki as trials are completed. Comments and feedback via the wiki discussion page are most welcome.
Kate Farrow
Manly Selective Campus
Northern Beaches Secondary College
Attached: Pictures of Blender animations from yr 9 students at Manly Selective Campus.
Links
Blender’s increasing adoption is always a great news!!
I watched a few of these, and I was pretty unimpressed. The pace of the tutorials was agonizing. Their structure was all over the map, rather than a linear crawl-walk-run setup. The goals were sometimes unclear.
This has been done far better on other websites.
Wow! Blender is more and more accepted. This is indeed great news. You are able to see Blender now in many tutorial and CG sites alongside other 3d creation softwares. News like this makes me feel all warm inside. Its good to know that other also like what you liked :-).
I learn some more stuff with the tutorials. It seems a little “short” but maybe it was done on purpose so that children could follow. Hmm! Teaching children 3d with Blender. Thats great!
The tutorials are pretty straightforward and work sequentially in with a visual literacy unit of work for high school kids. They are targeted to students (and teachers) who have not worked in 3D and are not necessarily confident technology users. The kids who have good digital literacy skills get through them in a flash and move on quickly to the more complex tutorials available elsewhere. The package aim is to get student thinking and problem solving in 3D and using Blender.
The commentary made me fell asleep.