Saturday, January 19, 2013

Animoto Makes it Interesting

Since I received my SMART Board last year, I've been trying to use it in an increasing variety of ways to engage my students.  I've scanned in picture books, created a few simple games, and streamed some videos to enhance their learning.  Most of the things I've done with my board, however, have not been created by me, but Animoto seems like a great solution.

I've always watched other people's videos and wondered how they created them.  Short of using a video camera or PowerPoint, how have they made their videos so interesting?  Animoto is a simple, user-friendly way to create videos for home or school, and I've learned that through watching others' videos, and easily creating my own.

Even the first educational Animoto video blew me away. It was a video about the Solar System created by a teacher who wanted to help her students review.  At the same time though, it inspired me.  It made me stop and think about my curriculum and how I could use it to help my students review info they'd already learned, or preview information they were going to learn.  I've already decided to use Animoto to create videos about Westward Expansion and the Civil War for my students.  The hardest part will be deciding what pictures to use, because it's really that easy to do.  In fact, I've already experimented with Animoto by creating a video of a Halloween party I attended.  Enjoy.


3 comments:

  1. I loved your Animoto! I need to learn how to make the pictures display fancy like yours!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Elena, I was wondering if you upgraded to a paid account? The free accounts don't seem to enable accessing an embed code. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was able to embed using just the educator account. Maybe I can show the class on Tuesday if it's still not working for everyone.

      Delete