Week 3: Animoto & Wordle

Tool #5: Animoto - www.animoto.com

http://animoto.com/about

http://animoto.com/

• Practical Uses in the classroom or in education in general:

Animoto is an extremely awesome tool that helps users create custom, professional videos from digital photos and clips. Students can create their videos that relate to projects or even topics that are being covered in class. 

• Learning Process for the tools as either an adult (you) or as a student, such as potential barriers, disadvantages or advantages, etc.:

Advantages:

1. Hassle free when making short video clips.
2. Easy to share videos with just one click to other social media platforms.
3. Animoto creates a new and unique version of your video each time you make revisions. 

Disadvantages:

1. The free version only allows 30 second clips.
2. Limited amount of music choices and templates.
3. Submits videos to only two video hosting sites.
4. Every remix is different. There is no way to control the transitions between frames or the appearance of your video. 
5. Cannot download or burn onto a CD or DVD.

• Link to your example or another public example:

Here is my Animoto entitled, "Visit Australia, The Land Down Under." I initially used Animoto during our Partners in Print workshop. I thought of it as a child-friendly website that students can use to easily create videos. Parents that used this loved it! They loved how easy it was to manipulate the photos and add music. It was hassle free and worry free. Click here to view a sample of the video that the parents made. 

• Must link to at least one resource to help teachers/parents/students begin to explore each tool:

Here is a link to teach about the basics for Animoto. Here is a 60 second intro video for Animoto that I used with my Partners in Print parents and a tutorial for Animoto beginners.

Tool #6: Wordle - www.wordle.net

http://www.wordle.net/

• Practical Uses in the classroom or in education in general:

Wordle allows you to create any type of word cloud that you may desire using words you provide either from a website with an RSS feed or from any document. Once you input all the words, Wordle then creates your word cloud. Once your word cloud is formed, you are able to change the font, color, and orientation of the cloud. Wordle can be used in many ways. Students could use it for rhyming words, similes & metaphors, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc. 

• Learning Process for the tools as either an adult (you) or as a student, such as potential barriers, disadvantages or advantages, etc.:

Advantages:

1. Wordle is free and no sign up is required to use the tool.
2. Wordle helps by summarizing/highlighting the keywords of a text.
3. Wordle allows for a visual representation of a text placing emphasis on words that are commonly used.
4. User friendly, easy to use, and visually pleasing.

Disadvantages:

1. Word clouds puts emphasis on the popular information, that might not always be the useful/important information.
2. In some cases the visual effects of the tag cloud can bias the interpretation of the visualization.
3. Without internet connection, your Wordle may not be accessible unless you have printed it or saved the image.

• Link to your example or another public example:

I used my 8th Grade Social Studies Syllabus and this is what my wordle looked like: 


I created another one using CNN's Tech News Feed and this is my wordle: 

• Must link to at least one resource to help teachers/parents/students begin to explore each tool:

For more information and tutorials on Wordle, visit this website. This is my screencast on how to use Wordle.