Animoto/Picnik/Free Play Music

I think Animoto is a great multimedia tool that could be used to motivate students in the classroom. I think that the videos are a great way to get students engaged and excited about the topic being presented. I also found that it was very user friendly. I think that even young students could create a video over a topic on Animoto with some guidance. They could even do it with a partner or small group. I had never used Animoto before, but had fun putting my video together. I recently just wrapped up my unit on persuasive writing and recycling. It went great, but I only used a power point and You Tube video for technology with it. The students did various writing projects and wrapped up the unit by making a poster to persuade people to recycle. I think that creating a video on Animoto would have been a lot more fun and engaging for them. I am going to go back and show my students the video that I made and see what they think of it. I know they will love dancing along to the music with it. The video will engage them and keep their attention.

I also found Picnik to be very user friendly. I had never used this tool either. I used Picnik to edit a few of my pictures. I played around with the auto-fix, rotate, crop, and color options the most. It was fun just to play around and see how I could edit the pictures in many different ways. I edited the earth picture using the auto-fix and color option. I also edited the blue, green, and black slide that listed things that could be recycled. I edited this picture using the color and size options.


On Free Play Music I was a little overwhelmed at first because there was so much to choose from. I decided to use the search options that they had available. I searched under eager/excited. I thought this would be good because I want to get my students excited about recycling. I found the song Everyone in Harmony. It was upbeat and fit well with my video. The only thing I need to look at with my video is at making sure the slides are slow enough that my students can read the ones with information and facts on them. I was able to read them, but would maybe have to slow it down or read it to my students.

Overall, I had a great experience with these multimedia tools. I am so glad that I have been exposed to them in this class. I might not have ever found out about them if not. I feel like I am learning so much already!