Category: Visuals

Age Group: All Levels

Cost: FREE for 6 months to educators and up to 50 students for a "Pro" account, FREE to general consumers using "lite" plan. 

Link: www.animoto.com

Description:

Animoto creates videos from still images and syncs them with music in an eye-catching slideshow.  Users upload their own images for each project, and music can be selected from the online library Animoto provides or uploaded from the user's computer.  "Lite" (free) accounts produce 30 second videos, while the "plus" and "pro" accounts allow for full-length videos.  Teachers can apply for a 6 month plan upgrade to "pro" by filling out an application here.  All it takes is your name, school name, and a school email address.  Within seconds, you are approved (provided you have already setup a "lite" account) for the upgrade. 

Use in Educational Settings

While students with any general computer knowledge can use Animoto, I believe middle and high school students would benefit from it the most.  Teachers can ask students to synthesize information by selecting a handful of pictures and adding text that summarizes a given topic and presents it as a movie trailer.  Book reports could be brief and engaging, historical events recaptured, foreign countries visited--and all in less than a minute.

Using Animoto in Education

Rockingham County Public Schools in Virginia has an entire page dedicated to Animoto.  Here you can find numerous examples of Animoto being used in the classroom:

Link: http://www.rockingham.k12.va.us/screencasts/animoto/animoto.htm

Howcast: How To Use Animoto 

Return to Visuals

Return to Instructional Applications of the Internet - Summer 2011 Main Page: IAI_Summer2011