Sunday, January 9, 2011

Animoto...videos quick and easy!

Like Charlene, I too discovered Animoto and was amazed how fast and easy it was to put together a good looking video. All housed online, you simply choose pics/vids from your computer and music from their site (LOTS of options) and the application creates a video using a selected template. I liked that they had plenty of music options (even a monthly "what's new" selection), which would satisfy K-12 students AND plenty of links to Creative Commons music sources for building school projects. Very student-friendly! There are benefits with a paid subscription, but like most, you could probably do without. You can sign your students up and let them make very cool presentations, very quickly! I threw this one together as a commercial for my after-school STEM Club...click here to check it out!



6 comments:

  1. Nice STEM video! It looked like you were able to add text to the "slides" in between your pictures/videos. Is there an option for adding captions/subtitles directly on top of the pictures? Also, if you are using a video clip you have on your computer & that video has sound, how does that interact with the music from Animoto?

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  2. Great video Keith. I am sure your students will really enjoy watching it and making one of their own even more. How long did that take you to put it together?

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  3. After viewing both Charlene's and your videos, I am now thinking that this could be the next step after podcasting. Students would have great fun making a video using pictures that they can find online, and adding their own text. I wonder how much time it would take a middle school student to make a short video? For example, if they were to create a video about the brain (thinking third quarter), how long do you think it would take? I am inspired!

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  4. Eileen, you have the option of using the sound or cutting it off. I haven't found a way to put text directly on the slides yet...maybe with the "pro" version.

    Cara, it took about 15 minutes! Janet, finding the pictures is the hard part...once they have them loaded, the video is created automatically. You just choose the template and add text between slides if you want.

    Here's the main catch...HoCo has it blocked!! Couldn't believe it when I went to show someone at school! But, I've got my top people working on it AND VoiceThread, which is also blocked.

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  5. I liked your video, Keith! Of course it is blocked. I would like to use this with some of my older students. I really like iMovie, but I feel like this would be somewhat quicker, and simpler. I especially like that it would help teach students about using creative commons and following copyright rules.
    In regards to the site being blocked, are you able to save videos offline? I look forward to finding unblocked alteratives, or the unblocking of the site (and voicethread too).

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  6. Animoto used to work in HoCo...don't know why it doesn't anymore, but we'll get it back. Have to make sure we can use these tools and administrators need to know why. I suggest everyone write to the board and let them know how frustrating it can be to NOT have access to these sites while sitting on millions of dollars of new hardware. Down off the soapbox...

    Everyone should make an Animoto video! http://animoto.com/

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