Friday, April 18, 2014

Animoto-- A Tool for Digital Story


Vacation on the beach


I used Animoto to create my first photo video with photos, text and music. It is easy to register with Facebook account. Adding photos and texts is just as simple as we usually do on social networking sites. However, users can only add 5 or 6 photos with texts to form a 30-second free video. Users will also find it convenient to find proper styles and background music for their music because Animoto suggests many of them. Besides computers, Animoto is available with smart phones and tablets. I made a video to share a girl’s one-day vacation on the beach. We can also use this way to assist teaching.

Firstly, a teacher can assign students to produce videos that work as weekly or monthly journals to reflect their daily life with this tool, aiming at practicing their language consciousness (especially grammar in writing) as well as enlarging their vocabulary. However, there is a character limit on Animoto, so it might be more helpful to ask them to include outlines in videos and leave details (or write the details down in their notebook).
Secondly, we could group students in small groups and ask them to reproduce more interesting stories from other group members’ videos. In this cooperative task, students are motivated to explore and innovate by themselves. New vocabulary or expressions will be added to their current language knowledge.
Thirdly, we can hide texts on the pictures and have students retell the story by writing it down or speaking it out to improve their writing or speaking skills. 

1 comment:

  1. Those are great ideas. I loved your creation. The little girl is so cute!

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