My First Animoto
To start my first Animoto, I clicked on the “Create” button at the top right hand corner of the page. Needless to say I LOVE the layout of this site. Everything that is important is in green and overall, the site walks you through the steps. For example, the first thing I needed to do was to choose a theme for my presentation. Because I am a little boring – or because I just wanted to see my first video (you chose) – I clicked on “The Original Animoto.”
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| www.animoto.com |
The people at Animoto could not have made choosing a theme any easier. Just click on a theme and BAM! there you have it, you have just chosen how your pictures transition. Now that I am typing this, I can see that I had a lot of options to chose from and maybe I was a little hasty when I clicked on “The Animoto Original.”
How to Create an Animoto video
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| www.animoto.com |
I was so excited when creating this Animoto project, that I chose all the pictures I have on my school computer. Now this might sound like a lot, but it’s not. The pictures were so random that the video made little sense. I chose images of cars, the school where I teach and one of me holding the Olympic torch. Now while this wasn’t the best thing to do for creating a video, it did help me learn a great about the type of images that I should be choosing when creating an Animoto.
I learnt that images being used for an Animoto presentation should be taken by a camera that is set to take high quality images but on a small scale. Images that were both high quality and large in size, took a ridiculously long time to upload. On the other hand, images that were screen captures or downloaded from Google images or Flickr were too small and became completely distorted beyond recognition. I believe this was a very important lesson to learn so that I could instruct my students properly when they create their own projects or for when I am making a “real” project in the future.
Another really cool feature that I stumbled on, was that educators can sign up and get access for all their students. They can even upgrade their own account so that they can add more than 12 images.
Using Animoto in the Classroom
The school where I teach has a high level of English language learners so I need to constantly be on the lookout for new and innovative ways to help them develop. One way that I can see my students using Animoto is to create digital stories. Using the imaging tools, music options, transitions and voice recorder, my students can create videos that capture setting, character development, conflict and conflict resolution, and excitement (Berger & Trexler, 2010). Animoto is a great way for my students to express their thoughts using media other than the traditional pencil and paper. I feel that even though I still teach spelling and grammar to my students that is not the only part of Language Arts. By allowing my students to chose how they present their understanding, connections, and experiences, I am allowing them to develop both cognitively and metacognitively (İrgin & Turgut, 2009). Another really great feature of Animoto is that my students can use it from their homes. Now I haven’t tried this with them yet, but I have done it with my own work and it works great. The reason I love this feature is because my struggling learner can have extra time to work on their projects and more importantly time to reflect on their own learning (İrgin & Turgut, 2009).
Beyond the School
After using Animoto, I feel that it has great potential for uses beyond the school setting. I can see mysel using this program the next time I need to create a photo montage at a wedding or church function. I have already started to create an Animoto using the images my wife and I took on our last vacation to Barbados. For this project I chose the “Air” theme which was truly magnificent. I can’t even tell you how much more emotion it added to the pictures compared to the first video I made. While creating this video, I learnt that the pictures I upload into Animoto should not be too large. On our trip we took pictures using our SLR camera and had it set on the highest possible setting, but what we didn’t know is that each picture ended up being almost 5 megabits each (that’s a lot). It took me about 15 minutes just to upload the images. Then I still had to add the music and choose if I wanted to include text. This is a lesson that is well learnt and something that I will make sure to tell others about.
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| www.animoto.com |
Highlighting Features
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| www.animoto.com |
One of the greatest features of Animoto is that users can chose pictures from their own personal collection (which I did), their Facebook account, Flickr, SmugMug, Photobucket or Picasa. After playing around with Flickr, SmugMug, Photobucket and Picasa, I noticed that the images they are bring up in the results are all free of any copyrights which is a great feature for teachers who are trying to instill a sense of digital citizenship into their students.
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| www.animoto.com |
Some of the other features offered by Animoto:
The ability to click and move images into any order I want just like in Photo Story or PowerPoint. However, in Animoto this feature is taken to a new level. Here all the images are seen at the same time allowing users to click and drag their image anywhere they want and they can actually see where they are dropping regardless of how many pictures come before it.
Another great feature available from Animoto is the ability to spotlight an image. This feature makes sure that only an image that has been selected to be highlighted is in a frame by itself and is large in size. I can’t think of why someone would want to duplicate an image, but that feature is also available. Users can also choose to Shuffle their images so that they appear in any order. I chose not to use this feature as I wanted my presentation to be in linier order.
The fast feature in the simple view is the “Delete” button which allows users to remove any unwanted pictures that may have been uploaded by accident or that are not wanted for any reason. In the “Advanced Settings” users are given a few more options such as:
The ability to click and move images into any order I want just like in Photo Story or PowerPoint. However, in Animoto this feature is taken to a new level. Here all the images are seen at the same time allowing users to click and drag their image anywhere they want and they can actually see where they are dropping regardless of how many pictures come before it.
Another great feature available from Animoto is the ability to spotlight an image. This feature makes sure that only an image that has been selected to be highlighted is in a frame by itself and is large in size. I can’t think of why someone would want to duplicate an image, but that feature is also available. Users can also choose to Shuffle their images so that they appear in any order. I chose not to use this feature as I wanted my presentation to be in linier order.
The fast feature in the simple view is the “Delete” button which allows users to remove any unwanted pictures that may have been uploaded by accident or that are not wanted for any reason. In the “Advanced Settings” users are given a few more options such as:
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| www.animoto.com |
o Adding a Video title
o Adding a Producer
o Adding descriptions for each image
o Choosing how the credits will appear
o Choosing to include the Animoto Logo or not
o Choosing the length of the video
o And choosing the image pace
References
Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world / Pam Berger and Sally Trexler ; foreword by Joyce Valenza. Santa Barbara, Calif. : Libraries Unlimited, c2010.
İrgin, P., & Turgut, Y. (2009). Using Animoto for Language Education. International Journal Of Learning, 16(9), 1-8.
Berger, P., & Trexler, S. (2010). Choosing Web 2.0 tools for learning and teaching in a digital world / Pam Berger and Sally Trexler ; foreword by Joyce Valenza. Santa Barbara, Calif. : Libraries Unlimited, c2010.
İrgin, P., & Turgut, Y. (2009). Using Animoto for Language Education. International Journal Of Learning, 16(9), 1-8.
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