Using Animoto in RCPS

 

What is Animoto?

Animoto is a web application that produces MTV-style videos using the images and music you choose. Produced in a widescreen format, Animoto videos have the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer. Best of all, no two videos are ever the same. Ever. -- from the Animoto website

See Learn more video intro at Animoto.com

Check out these examples done by RCPS teachers ...

• Gloria White's video about her MMS library: http://animoto.com/play/QSMBIA1nI985pvJKUFlQpQ
• Becky Powell's video about her preschool class: http://animoto.com/play/37fs5U1fsZQOQlISNCbTPg
• Brandon Caricofe's video about his new son: http://animoto.com/play/khAlssPMEbV6Ht8pvyVktQ
• Dave Suba's video about his masonry students' work: http://animoto.com/play/GhpZKOeWMeIvcvlnYG1KKg
• Jennie Carr's video about their scientific method study: http://animoto.com/play/bugoxooPE9fxhbbrX9buKg
• Lori Peltonen's video about a field trip: http://animoto.com/play/HqAqbyYSyRl4rztHJjJFeA
• Jesse Rodriguez's video (done with his wife) about her school's 5th grade team: http://animoto.com/play/CTM3RD3zhMYrECTYUc1EDA
• Marilyn Wall's video about their first week together in 4th grade: http://animoto.com/play/KzNmzPvVLDVizh6KsagX3w

Animoto will analyze the music and create a custom show using your pictures that you can link to in a webpage, email to parents, download, embed in a web site, or just show your students!

See some of the examples at the Animoto site that show how teachers have integrated Animoto into their instruction. In particular, see the "Discovery Education Streaming Science Podcast" and the "History Lesson" examples. The others are good, too.

Ideas for using Animoto in the classroom found at iLearn Technology edublog:

• Make any lesson come to life with audio and visual, use at the beginning of the day as a ‘teaser’ for what your students can look forward to learning each day or use to teach complex concepts in history, math, science, or character education. Students will respond to new media in the classroom.
• Allow your students to display knowledge of a concept using Animoto.
• Use Animoto for Education for a beginning of the year get to know you activity.
• Students can each create an Animoto showcasing who they are through pictures and music. Animoto presentations are quicker to create than traditional PowerPoint type presentations making them ideal for digital storytelling in the classroom setting.
• Because Animoto is completely web-based, students can create videos from school and continue working on them at home. The ability to download videos is outstanding … students could save their work for offline viewing too!

 

Plan Your Project

1. Organize and edit your pictures. You'll need 12-20 per 30 seconds of video.

• To crop or resize or do other simple edits, check out SnipShot at http://www.snipshot.com
• VERY small web photos may not work well; Animoto recommends pics that are somewhere in the vicinity of 640x480 or larger (size of a screen)
• If you plan to make videos for DVD or to download onto your computer, it's best to upload images that are at least 1024x768--but still, no need for pics more than 1 or 2 megapixels. -- from Animoto's help site
• Images must be in jpg or gif formats
• You can access pics from online photo services like Flickr, Picassa, etc.

Note: If you or your students need pictures for projects, a good site for free stock photography is stock.xchng. It requires registration but there is no fee to register. Most pics are offered in high resolution which makes them suitable for printing or for purposes such as this.

2. Locate music for your project

• Commercially produced music is not legal to use
• Some music is available at Animoto's site

Note: RCPS has a large collection of Royalty Free Music available to use for this sort of purpose. Download anything you want to use from the Royalty Free Music folder in your FirstClass email Conferences folder.

 

 

Assemble Your Video Using Animoto

3. Register at http://animoto.com/sign_up?promo=A4E081 (Use your RCPS email address when you register.)

• This account is will provide you with 9 months of All-Access privileges to Animoto. (Non-educators must pay for these services!)
• If you want your students to create Animoto slide shows, they may use this link above, too. The link code will expire December 15, 2008.
• After your account expires in the summer, register for an All-Access teacher account at http://education.animoto.com/ You will not receive confirmation right away since a real person is responding to requests versus an automated process; but an Animoto rep will respond to your request.

4. See handout (in pdf format) for step-by-step procedures.

5. Want to edit the finished product?

Click the remix button:

"One-Click Remix" will remix it with the exact same pictures, music, but give the video different transitions and video effects. "Editing Remix" will allow you to make changes (e.g. add, remove, rotate, change order of pics, change music) and you'll get new effects.