Well, this was an interesting project. I continue to be frustrated by how difficult it is to find and collate all the information about specific assignments in our class using Blackboard. That took quite a while:
Open mysnhu
Open Blackboard
Open class: “Learning Through Technology”
Open
“Module 3 announcements” and watch
Open “Modules”
Open “Module 3”
Open
“3-2 Discussion: Link to Blog”
Read
“3-3 Blog: Picture Project”
Look for “Assignment Guidelines
and Rubrics”
Open
“Class Tools” – not there
Open
“Research & Writing” – not there
Open
“Course Information” – there it is.
Open
“Assignment Guidelines and Rubrics”
Download
“Blog Rubric”
Open
“Blog Rubric” & read
* Discover later that this is also
posted at the very bottom of “Module 3”
Open “Animoto”
Sign up by giving personal details,
proceed with learning program and building assignment.
Review
“3-3 Blog: Picture Project” for details and title, etc.
Review
“module 3” – what am I posting where?
Confusion: I am linking to my Blog
in the 3-2 discussion, and using the links in other peoples’ discussion posts
to go to their blogs, and then going back to the discussion page to comment on
those blogs?
However, I don’t have to actually
post or link to the Animoto project I created? In my blog I just talk about
using the app.?
Be that as it may, I found Animoto relatively easy to use. I was disappointed by the amount of bait-and-switch clicks designed to get you to sign up for a paying accound, but I suppose that's business. At the basic/free level, it works pretty well. Text is limited - there seemed to be a really small amount of text I could add as captions - but being able to upload a soundtrack, change fonts and styles, etc., was interesting. It wouldn't work with some of the image formatting I wanted to use, but there are work-arounds for that.
I would use this application in the classroom as an assessment tool, rather than a teacher aid. There are easier ways for me to create a slideshow, if I want to summarize information this way for my students (Windows picture and fax viewer being the simplest, or Imgur, or the slideshow function on Weebly).
As a way for students to present a report this is a neat tool. I would use this in a setting where I had asked the class to do individual or group reports on different aspects of a single topic: for example, Notable People of the Harlem Renaissance, or Battles of the Revolutionary War. Animoto could be used as a way for them to present their finding to me and to the rest of the class. As usual with tech in the classroom, I would rig the procedures and rubric to de-emphasize the "glitter & bubble-letters" effect, where a student spends all her time on making the presentation pop, and not enough time on actual research and the presentation of relevant information. I can also see this being a useful tool to embed in a parent accessible blog, as a light and feel-good way of showcasing elements of class in general or some specific project the kids had been working on.
* With that usage, it is very important to remain within your districts rules about showing student faces or personal information in publicly accessible formats.
As you can see, I figured out a way to embed the Animoto work into the blog here, and also how to embed it onto the Google Sites page I created for class. That was a useful and new learning experience, and something I will use in the future.
My Google Sites Webquest with embedded Animoto
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