Animoto
Animoto is a presentation software that takes photograph and turns them into a video presentation set to music. I tried it out here with a few pictures of my children from years ago. It took me about five minutes to upload 12 videos, select music from some offered on the site and click the button to create the video. Wow! I was impressed! I really liked the video that was created. It looked like something that you might create with iMovie and stills if you really know how to use the various transitions and such. Here’s the one that I created here.
For 30-second video clips, the application is free. If longer videos are wanted, there is a fee.
For 30-second video clips, the application is free. If longer videos are wanted, there is a fee.
What I like about this application is that creating the presentation doesn’t involve learning a lot of technical procedures. In an elementary or middle school art class, students could use this in several ways.
One would be for the student to write a short poem, then pick out 10 or 12 images to illustrate the poem. The selection process of images would be what the lesson would focus on; the uploading them to the Animoto site is simple and quick. The point could be read into GarageBand with a musical background and exported as an mp3 file, then uploaded to be put with the images. This lesson could be modified for different ability levels pretty easily.
Another use would be for a student to do an autobiography, selecting pictures and artworks from different ages, as well as other autobiographical images. The student would then select the music and hit the button to create.
Students could create 30-second video portfolios of work that was done that year and set it to a brief spoken bio or artist’s statement and uploaded to a website. Just off of the top of my head, I can think of many variations to these projects in which the learning is in the selection and decision-making process, not the learning of the technical skills. Often we put so much emphasis on the technical skills part that we neglect to work with students on the “heart” of art making as much as we might. I think that this tool offers the opportunity to do this.
Credits:
Photograph is property of the author. © All rights reserved.
Movie is property of the author.
Kerry this is a great tool to have for even our classes. I wish we could do a 1 minute free video, 30 seconds just sometimes isn't long enough but I guess they're a business too and need to find funds somewhere. One of the greatest features of this software is the iPhone app to create the videos as well.
ReplyDeleteAnimoto will be a great for the student's artist statements, I've always thought of the statements as a written long (sometimes boring) paper. I think to move with the times creating a video resume, promotional video or artist statement is fitting.
I just found that Animoto for eductaion allows teachers to get access to full services for free.
http://animoto.com/education/
"We’re pleased to announce a new service exclusively for teachers. Animoto for Education (http://education.animoto.com) gives teachers, grades K-12, unlimited access to the full range of Animoto’s services, both standard and premium, for free." Dembo, 2008).
Dembo, S. (2008). Animoto for Education - Free is good. Retrieved October 17,2009 from http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/digital_passports/2008/08/07/animoto-for-education-free-is-good/
Wow, this is a great news that animoto gives us free unlimited access.
ReplyDeleteI just made mine in Animoto too. And I really like your idea of making a bio in animoto. That's really a good idea. Next semester, I will definitely try using this site to assign a biography with my art students. I like this site a lot.