fig 1. My example of a Flash produced e-card
Summary:
Adobe are the creators of a design software suite of which Adobe Flash Professional is a component of. Today people, and in particular students are becoming more visually dependent learners and prefer the use of animations, colour and pictures integrated into educational tasks to maximise personal outcome. As its stated in Living and Learning in the Digital Age (Gee J.P & Hayes E.R, 2011) if we compare literature, such as newspapers or textbooks over the years we notice that theres an increase in the use of illustrations, diagrams and charts which proves our increasing fascination with imagery.
Adobe Flash Professional is a further extension of integrating imagery into the education field whereby it can be created by a teacher or student. An extensive knowledge on the function of all tools on Adobe Flash Professional is not required in order to create a functional and effective Flash animation however.
Below is an instructive video on how to complete a simple e-card animation.
This process can be performed for text to text videos or text to picture videos or visa versa
Text to text example
Text to image example
Reflection:
Adobe Flash Professional is not something that we are all aware of the applications of and is not a component of a standard software package like Microsoft suites. Its a program in a Design software package created by Adobe and has the potential, if utilised properly to be a great tool in classrooms. It could be used to create digital storybooks or we, as teachers could train our students the basics (like I have above) of animation.
In the text Teaching With ICT (Howell J, 2012) the use and application of Flash is discussed. Howell presents that the addition of Flash animation files on websites provides platforms for animation, video and interactivity. Flash manipulates vector and raster graphics to animate text, pictures and drawings. Unlike other software programs and tools, Flash content may be displayed on various types of computer systems via a free software download known as Adobe Flash Player available on common web browesers such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox as well as some mobile phones and other portable devices using Flash Lite.
Some ideas for using Flash in the classroom include animating digital images produced by students, designing a banner for the school, bringing historical figures -to life’ and creating campaigns as a class task, using flash as a tool to animate the product. Flash is undoubtedly is a piece of software that is more challenging than the Miscrosoft suite. It requires previous experince/knowledge and familiarity by teacher’s. The process of inserting keyfarmes, animation short cuts and tools requires the guidance of an ‘expert’ on Flash Professional, but it does have many great possibilities and outcomes if used correctly. With an increasingly visually dependent learning curve becoming more evident, this could be a great tool for unlocking creativity and digital competence in our kids.
References:
Australian Curriculum And Reporting Agency: ACARA (February 2013). Retrieved from: http://consultation.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Static/docs/Technologies/Draft%20Australian%20Curriculum%20Technologies%20-%20February%202013.pdf
Adobe (2013), Getting Started with Flash Professional, retrieved from http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/getting_started.html
Gee J.P & Hayes E.R (2011), Living and Learning in the Digital World, pp. 12, 111-113 & 114
Howell J (2012), Teaching with ICT, pp. 89 – 95, 210 – 211 & 25 -27
emmaweber 