Posted August 2007 Cartoon competition swamped
		Year 5 Kurwongbah State School students have been the lucky recipients of a lesson in cartooning with creator of Swamp cartoons, Gary Clark. Gary Clark demonstrated how to create characters from very simple shapes and stick figures.

View the video …   mediasite (3min30sec)

The lesson came about thanks to their talented classmate Sophie, the winner of the Learning Place’s 2007 Online Cartooning Competition.

Mr Clark delivered the prize of a cartooning lesson to the enthusiastic students live online, via video conferencing, using an interactive whiteboard.

Year 5 Kurwongbah State School teacher Neil Pollock said the students enjoyed the experience.

‘They had a ball learning some great skills,’ Mr Pollock said.

‘There were lots of oohs and aahs as Gary showed them the steps to creating their own cartoon characters.’

For the competition, the Learning Place invited students throughout Queensland to create a collection of avatars for an Easter bilby.

The competition was a great success with entries submitted by 48 talented students in 13 schools.

Students created their cartoon characters on the Learning Place’s cartoon character bank, using their computer mice as pencils.

Competition coordinator and Learning Place Mentor Hazel Orr said many of the participants and their peers took the opportunity to offer comments on each others drawings via blogs.

‘The competition was a great example of how ICT can connect and encourage communication between students across the state,’ Ms Orr said.

Log on to the project room to view all entries submitted in the blog.