Transcript ｽﾗｲﾄﾞ ﾀｲﾄﾙなし

Development of Teaching Materials using 3-Dimentional
Computer Graphics Animation in Elementary Education
Kotaro Matsushita, Hayato Nishida, Shingo Furuya,
Kenneth J. Mackin, Hideo Suzuki, Eiji Nunohiro
Tokyo University of Information Sciences, 4-1 Onaridai, Wakaba-ku, Chiba 265-8501, Japan
[email protected]
Previous works
Background
There are a growing number of elementary schools and
high schools that install personal computers
It is possible to teach many subjects with Computer
Graphics in schools
We developed 3-dimensional CG animation teaching
materials using CG programming language
CG Material is effective for Education in elementary
schools
CG animation for teaching material using PowerPoint [1] to
create story boards [2], and Flash [3] to create picture books
[2] has been previously reported. Electronic story boards
using PowerPoint can display still images sequentially, but
do not fully support CG animation. Further, these are
centered on 2-dimensional (2-D) images. Research on fully
3-D animation teaching material for astronomy [4] using C
programming language and Open GL has been reported.
But OpenGL requires specific technical knowledge and
preparation of computing environment, and thus is difficult
to apply directly in elementary schools.
Generally, elementary schools will have limited computing
environments compared to colleges. Further, elementary
school teachers have many class hours as well as other duties,
so time in creating new teaching material is often very
limited. Therefore, when introducing CG animation teaching
materials in elementary schools, the system must be easily
installed in standard computing equipment in elementary
schools and the electronic teaching material must be easily
modified and extended in short periods of time.
Development environment
Development procedure
Development policy
CG animation teaching material was developed with
emphasis on the following 3 points.
(1) CG animation material to follow textbook contents
The CG animation teaching material is aimed at rousing the interest of
the students towards the contents of the textbooks, and to improve
the comprehension of the textbook contents.
(2) CG animation material to run on standard PC hardware
Elementary school computing hardware specification may be limited
compared to college and other higher education institutes.
(3) CG animation material to be easily modifiable and extendible
Elementary school teachers often have limited time to spend on
preparing new teaching material.
Outline of the research
PentiumD-2.8GHz, 512MB-RAM PC running Windows XP
for the OS was used for development. POV-Ray [5] was used
for developing CG animation. The reasons for selecting POVRay are the following.
Consideration of teaching material contents
Creation of draft image
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POV-Ray provides an efficient development environment.
POV-Ray is freeware that is widely used thought the world. Since
POV-Ray is freeware, the software can be installed without
financial restrictions.
There are a large number of references and sample program
resources which can be easily retrieved through the Internet.
The programs can be easily modified and extended by beginners.
3-dimentional CG animation teaching materials
Creation of CG for each scene
Creation of CG animation
CG animation
Fig.1 shows an example of a developed teaching material used in language (Japanese) class for 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade elementary
school class and Fig.2 shows animations of individual scenes. The story is an original story. The outline of each scene is
described below.
(a) Scene1
(b) Scene2
(a) Scene1
(b) Scene2
(c) Scene3
(d) Scene4
(e) Scene5
(f) Scene6
Fig.1 Language (Japanese) teaching material.
(c) Scene3
(1) Scene 1
A young crow feels the moonlight and looks up towards the sky. The young crow decides to look for a place where the beautiful
moon can be seen well.
(2) Scene 2
The young crow meets a raccoon. The raccoon tells the crow that the moon can be seen well from a tall mountain.
(3) Scene 3
The young crow meets a lost squirrel on the way to the mountain. The crow helps to find the lost squirrel’s home from the sky.
(4) Scene 4
The young crow next meets a sly fox. The young crow asks the fox for directions to the mountain, not knowing that the fox was
a trickster. The fox lies to the young crow and gives false directions.
(5) Scene 5
The young crow becomes lost and flies anxiously. A kind owl shows the crow the exit of the forest.
(6) Scene 6
Upon arriving home, the young crow realizes that the beautiful moon can be best seen from the top of the tallest tree in the
very forest he lives in.
POV-Ray scene file
Conclusions
Developers must create program source code that the object
and background definitions and control section are clearly
separated so that users can easily find and modify the
necessary sections of the source code. (Fig.3)
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Object section
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Control section
Background section
Fig.3 POV-Ray scene file.
When using CG animation as teaching material, the
contents can be modified and extended by changing
only the necessary parts of the program source code,
most often sections which describe the motion or
rotation of objects.
Installing the developed teaching material and
making the required modification and extensions to
the program source code of the teaching material to
match the needs for individual school classrooms is
the realistic approach.
(d) Scene4
(e) Scene5
(f) Scene6
Fig.2 Animations of individual scenes.
References
[1]G.J.Coulthard, P.R.Graves, S.E.Hutchinson-Clifford (2003).
Microsoft PowerPoint 2003, McGraw-Hill.
[2]K.Shintani, A.Inoue, M.Hirano, A.Ueda, S.Kaneda, Y.Miyata
(2004). Practice of PBL using information technology in early
childhood education, Proceedings of the 3rd Forum on
Information Technology, pp.355-356 (in Japanese)
[3]K.Mouri, M.Suzuki, T.Yasuda, S.Yokoi (2002). Production and
Practical Use of Teaching Materials based on 3-dimensional
Computer-graphics Technology with Collaboration in Education
of Astronomy, The Journal of Information and Systems in
Education , Vol.1, No.1, pp.3513-3516.
[4]Joey Lott (2006). Flash 8 Cookbook, O'Reilly.
[5]http://www.povray.org/
The 19th annual conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education
2008.3.3-7 (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)