"Slowmation" achieves world first in technology leadership awards

Nov 13, 2006

The University of Wollongong has achieved a world first by winning both 2006 International Technology Leadership Awards for the innovative use of technology in teacher education.

The awards have gone to Dr Garry Hoban, a Senior Lecturer in Science Education and Teacher Education and his honours student, Ms Kristy Kervin.

He and Kristy have now been invited to a world conference on technology in teacher education in San Antonio, Texas, in March next year to receive their awards, present a session at the conference and submit a journal article to their special issue called Journal Gallery of Exemplary Practices for 2007 to be published in their international Journal of Technology and Teacher Education.

The 2006 Technology Leadership Awards are presented annually by the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education. This international society is a subgroup of the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) which is by far the largest Information Technology group in education in the world.

Dr Hoban's award is for "Exemplary Use of Technology to Teach Content in a Teacher Education Methods Course" which recognises the value of preservice students making animations to learn about science concepts.

"In essence, it is a use of technology that is simple enough for students in schools and universities to make animations in a relatively short period of time (1-2 hours)," Dr Hoban said.

Dr Hoban pointed out that although he used the animation for teaching primary science it has application for the teaching of secondary and university science as well.

The international society presented awards in two categories this year. Dr Hoban shared the winning of one category and the other category, "Exemplary Use of Technology to Teach Content in the Induction Years" was won by Ms Kervin who has been teaching for four days a week this year and doing her honours degree as she researched the use of "Slowmation" in the area of teaching mathematics to Year Four students. A mathematics lecturer, Ann Baxter, co-supervised Ms Kervin with Dr Hoban.

Dr Hoban has been promoting the use of a new form of animation, called "Slow Motion Animation" or "Slowmation" that he has developed in his teaching over the past two years.

He has already successfully run workshops for staff and students at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver and at Monash University in Melbourne.

Dr Hoban said the awards would provide an impetus to submit an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant in 2007 with the University of British Columbia and Monash as collaborative partners to research the value of students making animations about science concepts.

In 2005, Dr Hoban won a Vice-Chancellor's Award in the category of Faculty Recipient for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning.