Animoto
Animoto is an online tool that allows you to create slideshow videos to teach a lesson, promote your school, and share with families as a memento. Students can also benefit by using Animoto with using tech skills, planning, organizing, collaboration, writing, and speaking, for any subject as a presentation tool.
This is a tool that I knew of, but never used. I actually had an Animoto account that according to the site, stated I signed up for about five years ago. It must have been a tool mentioned at a PD that I signed up for and then forgot about. Sound familiar? The links with all the tools to choose from was overwhelming, but when I saw Animoto, I thought I would give it a chance. Boy, I'm glad I did.
At first, I was disappointed that the 8 photos or so that I selected had to be narrowed down to about 5. Then I remembered that Powtoon offers a special account for educators, so I thought I would find out if Animoto offers the same thing. Just like Powtoon, Animoto gives you a year with the educators account, then you just renew yearly.
The most time consuming part of using any slideshow maker is the organizing and editing of photos. Once you are ready to use Animoto, it takes only a few minutes from upload to publishing. I like the results of an Animoto slideshow, because the background options turn ordinary photos into colorful displays of content that will draw others to social media pages and will have parents asking you for more.
Click HERE for the link that takes you to the Apply Now page. You might have to create an account first, then apply for the educators account. I apologize for not knowing for sure, but since I already had an account I didn't use for years, I logged in then found the information about the educators account. Now that I am set up for this year, I will be sure to design lessons that will allow my students to create Animoto slideshows.
This assignment not only had me explore one web 2.0 tool that I never used, but 2 tools that I never used. Besides Animoto, this was my first screencast video using Screencastify, and it was easier to use than I thought. My go to has been Explain Everything, but I wanted to make good use of this course by trying as many tools as I could. Like Aminoto, I had Screencastify as an extension showing on my toolbar for a couple of years, but never used it. The extension was easy to use, but I do wish I could pause and continue instead of having to create a screencast straight through without stopping. In case you never used Screencastify Lite, you can't edit your video, thus I stumbled over more words than I wanted. Like any tool that will be recorded and published, planning and organizing ahead of time is key.
Here is my first Animoto slideshow that I posted on my school's Facebook page. I also uploaded to Youtube so my students can view it.
I have always wanted to try Animoto. Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed your slideshow and pictures of your students. Do you think you will continue to use this Web 2.0 tool in the future? I think I might give it a try.
ReplyDeleteI will most definitely use Animoto. Since I create a lot of slideshows for my school's FB page, it's a quick and the results are eye catching. FB has a feature to make quick slideshows, but I want to make sure I have different tools to do so. This will help to keep our school's FB pg and my classroom web page fresh. As far as my kids go, my plan is to take advantage of the student accounts that Animoto allows. After my kids have some time to explore their accounts in order to explore the tools, I think I know what my 1st project for my kids. Teaching my students about rocks and minerals has always been tough, since no matter what I try to do, the kids say that rocks are boring. Maybe I can have my kids take their short research project about a rock/mineral and turn it into a Animoto presentation. When I work on my plans for the next science chapter, I will see what I can come up for my kids.
DeleteI really enjoyed learning more about Animoto. It seems like an enhanced and simpler version of Keynote or Powerpoint. I like that it is user friendly for adding music and other types of audio, and gives you layouts. I love the presentation that you made- it looks very professional! I may have to create one for a future open house or presentation :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Robert. I've used Powerpoint, but never Keynote. My kids use Slides and Prezi. The drawback I see with Animoto is that the resolution for finished projects is 360p. The paid version gives you better quality. I know a couple of my photos are slightly blurry, which is something I need to keep in mind for the future. I think Open House would be a great use of Animoto!
DeleteThe end product looks great. I like the ability to easily embed other media into a slideshow to make it more engaging. Cool tool!
ReplyDeleteThank you James. Yes, it was very easy to embed and upload to social media.
ReplyDeleteThank you for telling us about the Animoto for Education. I might not have realized that before watching your video, and after seeing how the site works I'm eager to use it. The music effect is one of the coolest things about this site. Some websites, like Adobe Spark, let you have soundtracks. But I haven't seen many websites that let you choose music the way Animoto does. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI agree, if there educator accounts weren't offered, I probably wouldn't use that site at all.
ReplyDeleteAnimoto is an oldie but a goodie! It was one of the very first Web 2.0 tools I used. At the time I used it as a "thank you card" to a company that had donated supplies to our school. They loved it! This is a nice one to have in your tech toolkit. Thanks for sharing your Mystery Hangout movie!
ReplyDeleteA thank you card is a great idea! I will be using that one!
ReplyDelete