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Edwin<div><br></div><div>I have teaching experience too and the beauty of digital 3d modelling is that it can build the cognitive links. Moving over time and space - approaching the theory of relativity! So she couldn't count to ten, but i hope you didn't give up with her. 3d modelling is a great way to really stimulate number skills in kids </div><div><br></div><div>jon<br><br><hr id="stopSpelling">Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 18:29:17 -0400<br>From: njainsch@risd.edu<br>To: bf-education@blender.org<br>Subject: Re: [Bf-education] Intro to Blender 3D class for teens<br><br>My mother was a teacher in the New York City public school system, particularly in the (then) very poor neighborhood of Harlem. There are a lot of challenges facing the kids in those areas, hence a lot of challenges facing the teachers. I hope your Blender class gave the girl a context for why it might just be good or useful to learn arithmetic, rather than make her feel that it was useless to try.<div>
<br><div><br><div class="ecxgmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Edwin Pilobello <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:e_pilobello@yahoo.com">e_pilobello@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="ecxgmail_quote" style="border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Starting up an Intro to Blender 3D class for teens tomorrow. It'll be a 3<br>
hour class for 5 Saturdays at Portland State University.<br>
<br>
I'm going to start this class off like I fell into when using laptops without<br>
numeric keypads. I'm going to skip the keyboard shortcuts. It seemed to reduce<br>
cognitive load by just using the mouse to choose options over remembering<br>
shortcuts and using two hands. I believe they would really appreciate shortcuts<br>
later after they've absorbed the basic concepts of 3D objects and manipulation.<br>
<br>
My last class at a Title I school (at least 70% of the student in the free lunch<br>
program) gave me a lot of challenges. There was one 5th grade girl (~11 years<br>
old) who was having a lot of difficulty animating a ball bouncing off a block <br>
The rest of the class made relatively quick work of positioning the ball,<br>
inserting a keyframe, moving the ball, inserting the next keyframe and reducing<br>
the height and interval until the ball came to a rest. After a lot of effort to<br>
try to help this girl understand and do, I finally decided to play a counting<br>
game. We were to alternately count off even numbers. She couldn't make it to<br>
20!!! She couldn't get past 10 when counting by 3s.<br>
<br>
The rest of the class just shook their heads. I was somewhat dumbfounded to<br>
discover an 11 year old with very little number sense. So moving something over<br>
time and space was way beyond her comprehension.<br>
<br>
Oh well!<br>
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