Animation

I'll admit it--I grew up watching and loving the Disney movies--and thoroughly enjoy Pixar films, Futurama, and other animated offerings.  I admit it--as film mediums, they are amazing, and a great source of entertainment.  For education, however, I'll be the first to admit that I don't really like them.  Perhaps its because too many websites seem to go overboard on their animations--and I've never seen a good one to help teach mathematics.

My third year of teaching, we piloted using a self-paced remedial math program that was designed around having each student help teach a purple alien mathematics.  While the program was mostly marketed to Elementary and Middle school-aged children, we were told it was appropriate for "early High School" students as well.  To a student, within three weeks, each student in our test group complained that the program was "juvenile," "silly," and/or "baby-ish."  Even though they legitimately needed the help the program would provide around the mathematics, they weren't willing to deal with the animated alien interface to get to the practice--and I can't blame them.

One of my pet peeve websites is www.coolmath.com.  When I first started using this website for enrichment and practice with students, it was a kaliedoscopic carnival of colors, flashing icons, and a custom cursor.  While it's been toned down a fair amount, it's sill not anywhere near a pleasant site to look at.  I guess my overexposure to bad animations--those "oh, look at me--I can create moving flashing lights!" sorts of interfaces has blinded me to any kinds of good animation on the web.  I'm still looking--but especially in thinking about working with high school age students and up, I wonder whether animation is ever more effective than live video.