<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>Hi All,<br><br></div>Sorry I haven't replied sooner, but
I've been recovering from surgery over the last 3 weeks. It's been a
hard year personally, and I've only tested half my curriculum before
handing it over to a teacher of science, with little IT background.
So, I haven't had the chance to refine it at all. Anyhow, on with the
useful stuff. <br>
<br></div>What I've written is aimed at the Victorian Curriculum (VELS)
for the High School student, and I was told around March that there
wound not be many changes in the shift to the Australian curriculum,
otherwise known as AusVELS. However, I double checked <a href="http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum.html" target="_blank">http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum.html</a> and the Technology Learning Area, which includes IT, is not due to be published until late this year. (See <a href="http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum_1/learning_areas/technologies.html" target="_blank">http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum_1/learning_areas/technologies.html</a>). So, I'm guessing that what I've done will need to be reworded to fit with what ever is released.<br>
<br>I tried at the end of last year to map out the conceptual knowledge
needed for blender, which is similar to the Khan Academy's Maths
Knowledge map, but more primitive. It covers; <br>Basic skills (File management, the current UI, Import/Export/Appending, Asset Management), <br>
Modelling (Basics, Vehicles & Other hard surfaces, Precision Modelling, For 3D Printing, Organic Modelling), <br>Materials& Textures (Material, Textures, UV/Bump/Normal/Displacement Mapping),<br>Animation (Simple stuff, Dope Sheets, Machines, Bones & Posing),<br>
Environments (World Settings, Lighting, Cameras, Backdrops, Particle Systems, Architecture),<br>Renders (Basic Images, The Sequences, Compositing, Scenes, Camera Tracking).<br></div><div>Short Film/Animation Project (Planning, Production)<br>
</div><div><br></div>For each of the above subject I wanted a directly
applicable task to complete, and I wanted all the tasks to mesh together
to walk the students through the whole Short Film/Animation Project. So
that by the time they had got to the final project, they already had
the skills to succeed. To enable this the core idea is to move through a
simplified production cycle, and add detail to each step. Tested so far
are the following tasks: A shape stacker, a brick wall, Pong, A Star
Wars style credit roll, A Cartoon Car, The Solar System, An Aircraft Fly
over, a Walking Man, and two mini-projects. However, this is aimed at
year 10 students, but it can be easily adapted to a younger year level,
but dumping half the tasks and focusing on the fun.<br>
<div><br></div><div>So this map I've created was wired into a basic
curriculum plan for 5 x 45 minute lessons each week and running for 16
weeks. I'm accounting for regular disruptions, and the need for instant
gratification.. But I'd take a different tack for the primary school, by
linking to other curriculum areas. Which I'll some ideas as to how to
use Blender for each curriculum context.<br>
<br></div><div>Blender naturally sits in the areas of Mathematics,
Numeracy and Information & Communication Technology (ICT)
capability. So things like geometry of the shapes that can be used(look
at the Add Mesh: Extra Objects for some cool gems stones), <span>Cartesian
plane (in 3D), basic number skill (by using the moving 3 units along
the x direction... etc), basic file management, what different file
types are used for. <br>
</span></div><div><span>For the area of Science, just look at the physics of the particle system. To include </span><span>Critical
and creative thinking use brainstorming and sketching, for Personal and
social capability use team work for the projects and that will fix you
laptop problem, for Ethical understanding have discussions about
copyrights & creative commons. Other areas like</span> English, History, Geography, etc are harder to do, but you could enhance regular projects with a bit of cool animations. <br>
<br></div>I hope this helps & cheers,<br>Jamie Le Rossignol<br>W: <a href="http://impossibleemporium.com" target="_blank">impossibleemporium.com</a><br><a href="http://spiritofenquiry.org" target="_blank"></a>
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