Reflections:

• For my project, I used iMotion, iMovie, my computer, and my iPad to create a Lego stop-motion video about making positive life choices. I chose to make this video because I wanted to show a lego person climbing a cool mountain with their friend. The mountain represents overcoming challenges and making good decisions in life with friends.

• During this process, I learned How to make stop motion videos using iMotion. I also learned how to animate characters to look like they were moving. I was also able to learn how to make my video more smooth by taking two pictures instead of 1 at a time, this made a huge improvement.

• The 7standards of the class are Empowered Learner, Digital Citizen, Knowledge Constructor, Innovative Designer, Computational Thinker, Creative Communicator, and Global Collaborator. My project connects most to the standard called Creative Communicator. It fits this standard because we used stop motion to show someone climbing a mountain with a friend, which communicates a story in a creative and visual way.

• One challenge I overcame during this project was that our setup kept falling over. To fix it, I found some extra Lego pieces and added supports in the back to hold everything up. This worked really well because the project stopped falling, and we were able to move the characters on our setup without anything collapsing.

• Given a chance to do this again, I would change the background of our stop motion. When we were recording, we were in a slightly different spot each time, which made the video look a little uneven. Using a solid-colored background would help keep everything consistent and make it easier for viewers to focus on the stop motion itself. 

• Hastings High School Career and Technical Education Program offers Agriculture, Business Management, Computer Programming, Construction Trades, Culinary Arts, Digital Multimedia, Engineering Design, Finance, Insurance, Marketing.  My project connects to the Digital Multimedia CTE program at Hastings High School. It ties to this because you can only view it on a screen.

• My project connects to a career in animation because animators are responsible for moving characters and objects in each frame to make them look like they’re really moving. They bring characters to life using a series of still images. I did this in my project by making the Lego people climb a mountain, one picture at a time.