Animoto

My First Animoto

I experienced many technical difficulties prior to being able to create this video, but with the help of Victoria I was able to finally log on the the sight and explore this tool

While I was quite intimidated when I opened this tool it was fairly easy to use.  I started my trial with very limited time left before the assignment was do.  I began with the tutorial that walks you through each step of creating a video.  I let the tool choose videos for me so that I would not end up down the rabbit hole of perfect picture selection.  I did however change the song to appeal to my learners.  I used both methods of captioning available and quite honestly, only realized there were two through trial and error.  One method puts the words prior to the picture and one method captions directly underneath the picture.  I actually like using both to provide repeated practice.  Then I got really brave and choose my own photo.  That was just as easy.  I used the stock photos they had to offer due to time constraints.  Then I got even braver and used a video which was fabulous.  

Things I didn't do:

Change the logo.  It seemed complicated and I didn't have time to explore.  Also, I didn't feel it had any bearing on the content or the purpose of my video.  It would have made me look way cooler if I could figure it out.

Change the speed of the slides.  I would really like to figure out how to do that because I would like to make it slower for my students.

Voice over.  I would have liked to read the words and sentences aloud for my students.

How I plan to use it:

Sight word practice.

Older students reading on lower levels could be taught to make these on their own for sight words and vocabulary.  My younger students could benefit from using the videos created by the older students or I could create videos based on their sight word sentences.

Overall, I LOVE this tool.  If I can learn to use the trial and write a blog about it in an hour while experiences unrelated technical difficulties then I have total confidence that you would be able to use it too!