Animoto in the Classroom

This post is dedicated to Animoto and it's uses in the classroom.

animoto.com

I was interested in Animoto when another colleague of mine was thinking about using it in her dance class with elementary students.  She wasn't sure how engaged, especially the boys would be, in a dance unit, so she toyed with the idea of having the kids take pictures of very strategic steps in a dance that they were to learn and then animate the pictures through Animoto to get the pictures to come to life.

My interpretation of her description was that it would move one picture into the next in a sequence that would look more like a stop motion video with simple transitions.  In the end she never did use Animoto and the kids performed their dance in person.  Never the less, my interest was peeked about this Animoto tool.

Animoto is a tool that claims to "Enhance your digital classroom with Animoto, the perfect tool for creating videos and presentations. It takes just minutes to create a video which can bring your lessons to life."  The site provides some examples of how educators can use it in the classroom.  I watched a portion of a video entitled Funky Function Notation  that in my opinion was information/music overload.  It was hard to process the information being given through the loud music and constant movement of the screen.  I know they were using this one as a good example but I would rather have said it was a bad example of how to use Animoto in the classroom.

Again on the same page was an example of going through the alphabet.  I suppose that it would depend on how or why this video was being used as to whether I would have sited it as a good example or not.  If the students made all the representations of the letters and Animoto was used to highlight the students work, then I thought it was a great idea.  If the video was suppose to reinforce the alphabet then I would have to give it a pass.  Again, too much competing information for the senses, cognitive overload happened quick.

In order to experience this tool first hand, I gave a video a try.  I took pictures from a students work in a Cosmetology 10 class and put them into a video.

Positives:

• The video was relatively easy to create
• It was free

Negatives:

•  I would have liked to have seen a preview of the video before the final creation of the video.  
• When adding text you have a 22 character limit for the title and a 30 character limit for the subtitle, so you have to be quick and to the point when highlighting key points.  
• I couldn't find how to choose the transitions which may be a positive for the simplicity of the video and may keep the students focused on the task at hand rather than getting lost in all the bells and whistles.  Still I would have liked to have had a bit more control in the transition process.  
• The music was often too loud and distracting (maybe I am too old) 
• With the transitions, music, and speed of movement, there are often times too many items competing for attention leading to cognitive overload.
• The free version is limited to 30 seconds.

How would I recommend using it?

• For an quick easy presentation of photos taken in class
• As a showcase of students work
• For students to highlight important ideas and pictures from a specific topic.

Below is the Animoto video that I put together from a students pictures for an assignment in Cosmetology 10.

Look for future blogs about game makers as well as some definitions.  I seem to be lost in the language as I look through online games.  I am wondering:  Do you need a PhD to understand what Web 2.0 means?  I will be addressing that topic in future blogs as well.