[CLUE-Talk] help with new course

[Roger Frank]

Once again I go to the wellspring of creative ideas of my
fellow Cluebies.  I am tasked with creating a new course for
the high school to be offered next fall.  It is a course in
Computer Animation and Graphics.  For anyone who has read 
previous posts, it should come as no surprise that there is
no money to spend on software or probably even textbooks.
So it's going to be open source all the way, which I hope will
work out to do what I want to do.

Therein lies the difficulty.  Just what should such a course
include?  I'm thinking it is more than just creating some 3D
images or animations.  I think there should be some appreciation 
of what's going on (perhaps with an OpenGL or a Java 3D piece).
I think there should be some appreciation of animations that
mimic intelligence (perhaps with boids or something else).
The course prerequisites are Multimedia I and Algebra 2.
What this means is that student might not have any programming
experience, and they might not have had 3D matrices in math.

For the 3D piece I'm looking at Art of Illusion.  Blender is
another possibility, or even Maya.  Anyone with experience
there?  I have some time next semester to put the course
together and try out different 3D applications, but I'd like 
to bootstrap from others' experiences if possible.

So what are your thoughts on what might make sense in such a
course?   Anything goes, to the list or to me personally if
you prefer.  I'd like your input in how to make this a great 
course for the students.

---
Roger Frank
rfrank at rfrank.us