Deeper Reading - Animoto

The more I hear about what people have to say regarding Animoto, the more positive I am that I made a good choice to look into this Web 2.0 Tool. It is a program that can be used by everyone from Grade school kids, to Seniors who are new to the whole technology vibe. I will be applying for the Education Licence, but from what I have read it can take a few weeks to become activated. Until then I will be playing around with the 30 second free videos.

Lisa Perez talked about the education account in her article Animate Your Students with Animoto! Published in The School Librarian's Workshop (Fall 2010, Vol. 31, Issue 2, p12) "Your account will be active for six months and you can request to renew it. The site will give you your own classroom code and a link to download a file that you can print for your students to guide them in setting up their accounts." Perez notes that describes some of the various safety features that are built into the Animoto Education account. Students under 13 years cannot create their own accounts; teachers can create "dummy" accounts for students, and teachers also "have control over communications. In addition, there is no way to contact students directly through these accounts." Which will help keep them safe from other people online. Perez also gives further advice to ensure students' safety; steps include not allowing students to include personal pictures of themselves or friends without signed photo releases, and also having students refrain from including their names in the project.

Keith McPherson also talks about the benefits of teacher-librarians using this program to develop students information literacies in his article Mashing Literacy published in Teacher Librarian (June 2008, Vol. 35, Issue 5., Pg. 73-75)he lists some advantages of using Animoto in the classroom.

One: it "enables visual, aural, and textual learners to quickly create and communicate complex new and powerful stories and messages of a multimodal nature".
Two: due to its ease and adaptability to a multitude of different projects, it will keep students engaged over long periods of time.
Three: Animoto can be used to develop the online social skills of students.

McPherson lists different ways that programs such as Animoto can be used in the classroom such as "developing students' online critical thinking and communication skills." Teacher-Librarians can lead lessons, and discussions involving topics such as copyright, plagiarism, and how to establish safe and effective presentation posting practices.