Bluffton Elementary wins national honor for computer animation project
Bluffton Elementary wins national honor for computer animation project
Bluffton Elementary School was honored Thursday, January 26, by a national arts organization for an art initiative in which students use computer animation software.
The school district reported in a press release that animation teacher Celia Stokes accepted the 2012 Arts Innovation Award for the school’s “Animate Me” project during the national conference of the Arts Schools Network, the nation’s largest professional organization of specialized arts schools. Designed to recognize schools committed to taking innovative artistic risks, the award is presented annually to a school that has “broken the mold” in using the arts as a vehicle for teaching academics and making a positive difference in the lives of students and the community, according to the release.
“This is such an honor for our teachers, for our students and for our school,” Principal Christine Brown said in the release. “It’s wonderful to be recognized for taking a creative and effective approach to improving student learning.”
“Animate Me” engages children as young as seven in creating creative computer-animated stories about science and social studies topics, according to the school district. Bluffton Elementary students have created animated stories about World War I, changes in matter, new vocabulary words and more. The program goes beyond a typical visual arts program through the use of drawing tablets and storyboards to support story building, visualization, sequencing, logical thinking, creativity and self-expression. Students demonstrate their understanding by the use of a visual illustration as opposed to traditional paper-and-pencil activities, and teachers get another tool for determining the level of a student’s understanding of curriculum standards, according to the release.
“We’re extremely proud that Bluffton Elementary pioneered animation in Beaufort County,” Superintendent Valerie Truesdale said in the release. “This kind of technology application really stretches student learning.”
Truesdale also said that the “Animate Me” program has been expanded to include all five Bluffton-area elementary schools thanks to a grant from the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry.
According to the school district, Arts Schools Network is a community of schools and institutions dedicated to education in and through the arts. Its mission is to provide the leadership necessary to inspire and maintain excellence in arts education by supporting and serving leaders of specialized arts schools, arts integration schools and new schools of the arts across the country.
Arts Schools Network works with more than 60,000 students: 1,486 arts-focused schools; arts organizations and arts education leaders; 74,300 arts school administrators, teachers and counselors; and 743,000 alums of member schools (www.artsschoolsnetwork.org).
For more information, contact Kristy Callaway, the Network’s executive director at 907-300-4650 or kristy@artsschoolsnetwork.org.
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