Animoto tool

Karen Pallay shares a recent and VERY cool animation tool she's using in her ENG 111 classes:


Thanks to my friends at the English Companion Ning, I have found a truly cool Web-based tool called Animoto. This find coincided with my foray into the teaching of a new subject: ENG 01. When I first saw an Animoto demo, I saw a tool for introducing my new audience to the Natural Human Learning Process and a major premise conveyed in the textbook I am using based on that process: students who expend time and effort can learn because humans are born to learn.

How you might incorporate Animoto seems limitless. On the English Companion Ning, teachers reported using it to teach abstract course concepts, to convey basic class policy information, and to provide high-level overviews of--just about anything.

Here's a view of the process involved in Animoto-ing:

• Find a concept you want to teach or information you want to convey.
• Pick a template/theme.
• Add images and text.
• Choose some music
• Let Animoto's magical engine mash it all together.

You'll find Animoto is pretty adept at creating interesting and moving transitions. If the initial result doesn't quite work for you, you can rearrange and add content, and perhaps select a few effects, and then put Animoto to work once again on compiling a result; (hopefully, ultimately) a multimedia experience that delivers the meaning you want to convey.

Educators will want to sign up for an educator's account, which is free and has the features discussed here.

To learn more about Animoto, try this link.

Here is a sample Animoto creation by Karen: http://animoto.com/play/14pN3TC1zT9X5gKc5Lx30g