Hi people,
today, my topic is about the experience of teaching blender at school !
i’m working from 2 years in school as a computer teacher (near puduchery, Tamil Nadu), i use to work more and more (even only) with open source softwares and free apps. My classes are 4th to 8th grade, all my students are indians, passionates about computer and technologies.
i also teach adults in vocational fields like Animation, graphics, web design and office work.
in that case, my “students palette” is large enough to give some good feedbacks.
At this time, i have about 120 students per weeks, and i manage many educational programs for many levels. I’m passionate, what to do ?
As some of you know me as uriel from the french community forum (blenderclan) and as the admin of Blender-pro.com, i’ve moved 2 years ago to India to work. And i’ve made the choice to promote as much as possible Blender and his features !
For what educational purpose i may use blender ? Mainly for 3d modeling, animation and video editing and…programming ! Here is my last 2010 report:
This year, we started to teach open source multimedia apps, Blender/Gimp/…
Blender will be at the center of our program which is to developp educational plateform. We choosed Blender because it’s open source, free/legal and easy to handle for all kind of students.
Our first practice course was Video editing, thru a film making workshop. This is a 2 weeks class for different grades, the students will produce a one shot movie and a collective short movie, the topic was poetry ! (last year, the topic was free).
so we started with all process in order: poetry selection/script writing/storyboarding/shooting/editing/mastering
Of course, blender was used for editing but also for writing text (taking notes) along the practices. I prepared a special windows management for them. (see picture)
I’m very happy to see the students working alone after 5 min. of demo ! so easy to manipulate and get results ! and this result was very good !
The final movies were rendered in 1920x1080 as AVI for screen projection.
We added titles from Gimp (simple white text on black background) and then import it in the Blender sequencer, using soft transition (color fx + cross)
We also use the tech. of transfom (position on axis) strip fx for making the rolling text at the end !
After the session, we saw our results and everybody were happy and motivated to do it again…a victory !
click here to see the entire album of Kolam computer center
I use also blender for 3D modeling and animation, every Saturday, i give 2h classes for surrounding kids from the villages (from 10 to 15 years old). We are working from more than one year on a short cartoon movie ( i can only give the title: The stone of light).
The students took 4 month to complete the script of an original story (hard work), and then 4 month more to detail landscapes and characters and ambiances. Then, after that, the time came to draw some specific shots to add into the storyboard, we were preparing the 3d scene design 
Now, from 3 month, we have entered into production, all students came regulary to progress into modeling, i’ve decided to start with landscape, flowers, trees, rocks, grass and others things.
They learn quite fast ! i was surprised to see after 2 classes, some are doing very good works on object topology ! so, we made an object library to collect all models for the cartoon !
and here we are ! the time is coming to produce a low resolution animation for advanced timing estimate ( we did last year a movie where the kids played “real time” the story to make a first estimate).
it comes that the final will be around 12 min. of animation !!! i was saying “oulala!” because i know from my professional experience that is always an pain to produce such animation with a small team, no money and/or non-experimented workers ! but, this time, there is no financial goal, so we will take the time to do it ! (i’m thinking about 7 month more to complete, until the end of the school year)
More than this, last year, i had only 6 computers in my classroom , but a generous donation to the computer center brings us up to 15 pc (2core) + 2 Imac 24’, all Linux + an Linux server for data/render storage !
our “renderfarm” is about 34 cores…quite nice for a small computer center (Kolam) !
But i tell you something, it is never enough
Well, it’s a magic experience to work with a soft such blender, i personally use it from the day i saw that blender became free (some times ago :D) and i’m really appreciate the way that the foundation is driving the development !
About 2.5, i’m completely in love with it ! yes, i’m talking about the features and the UI, but also because all my young students want to become 3d artist/programmers ! you ear it ? python programmers to improve blender possible applications ! charming to see all these kids running when coming in 3Dgraphics classroom for 2h, no break !
i was “crazy” to see how the “new” Blender 2.5x can be introduced into school and develop motivation and creativity, as well as good practice of computer and a good skill in project management !
i would like to say (because i never did) THANKS to Ton and his regular Dev. team to offer such nice software within an open source spirit ! it is the future ! (OSource and linux are growing up so fast in india !!!)
Last thing before i finish this topic, i recommend to all teachers to go for linux (ubuntu will be a good choice to start) and his softwares packages. Noway to stay under Win because the world is manifesting the beginning of a new generation, the “open” one ! And we must prepare those kids to influence that future !
Thanks to programmers that make it accessible to anyone, even the poorest, and to make it free and legal tu use ! the commercial bring down our civilisation, the virtual open our mind to share and learn more…the future is beautifull, isn’t it ?
I want to share and ear about other teachers or trainers about the use of blender in their classroom…if you read this topic until the end ?
Someone said one day: “To be a good teacher, you have to be a great student…” , In fact, with blender, we always use our time to learn something, it never stop … is that true ? but we like it very much, don’t we ?!
Well, thanks for reading this story of blender user, i will go back straightaway on my desktop for modeling session ! Happy blending !
Would it be possible for us to view the movie that the students made? Or a ‘Making Of’? I am so curious because I’m probably around the same age your students are (~15).
i already ask some of them to participate to the South India Blender users group, with some pro. from bangalore and chennai, as well as people from my area puduchery !
Anyways, I’d like if you could post the final result of your short movie here, so we can enjoy the potential of these kids