I've been playing around quite a bit with Animoto the past several weeks. I have not broken down and purchased a full year subscription ($30) or even paid for one full video ($3). I have been sticking to the free 30-second shorts.I decided that if I can stick to 30 seconds, my students could as well . . . making Animoto possible to use in the classroom (free). Students could sign-up for a free account and then go to town creating 30-second shorts for any class project.
It is beyond easy to use and there is a great music selection available. My only source of frustration is that I am limited to 8 to 9 slides within that 30 seconds, and I never know if they will all make it into my short video until after they have processed and created my 30-second short.
One thing that I really do like about the 30 second time limit is that it forces this to be a quick, one or two period project. So, it is a great technology that teachers can implement without a needing to commit a large amount of class time.
I was bothered by the lack of text that can be placed on the text slides. However, I finally found a way around that. Now, I create my text in Paint and save it as a JPEG which I then import to Animoto as a picture.
Examples:
I heard about an awesome idea by an Arizona math teacher from Lesley Edwards on her blog The Webfooted Booklady. He is asking the world to send his second grade class math question videos. So, I decided to create my own math problem for Room 46 using Animoto.
Here's a little 30-second short that I did as a opening for an in-service presentation I recently conducted on using Interwrite pads.
Classroom Ideas:
videos revolving around a certain vocabulary or spelling word
current event videos - around the world in 30 seconds
teacher created problems or prompts for response by students
create commercials for an advertising unit
book trailers
character studies
artwork portfolios
Do you have any other ideas for using this in the classroom? I would love to hear about them.
Do you have any other ideas for using this in the classroom? I would love to hear about them.
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6 comments:
It's just so wonderful to see the ways in which people take an idea and run with it. Love your animoto math question!
Hi Miss M!
Just working with a teacher who is starting her class on using Animoto.
How did you do the intro part of the math problem where you posed the question? I tried to do something similar by taking a screen shot of text in Word but could not upload it.
Hi Mrs. E
I would love to hear how the Animoto class project goes. I haven't used it with any teachers yet.
I did the intro part in Micosoft Paint. So, basically, I opened up Paint, created a textbox, wrote what I wanted to, and then saved it as a JPG. If this is not clear enough, let me know and I will try to explain it better.
Thanks, that's very clear. We want them to add their bibios if possible and thought that would be the way to do it. We'll see. I will try to write a blog post about our Animoto experience with the kids.
If you register as a school or class with animoto you can get longer videos for free... This is a great little app. I love it and love seeing how people are using it
Oooh, Dianne, thanks for letting me know. I didn't really think to look into that! I'm really excited to start using this with my students:)
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