Animoto/Picnik

Using Animoto in the classroom would be a wonderful tool and experience. I think students would connect with it and be excited to work on presentations, or projects in this format. This would give students a chance to use images to express the concepts and ideas, but also the ability to do some writing. This would be a good way to have students summarize, since there isn't much space to write on the slides. Group work could also be done through this tool. I think it would take some time to develop how to use it and also how to find/save/import images to use. It might take time to do some pre-teaching and working with the skills to find images, unless you found certain sites or pre-determined images. If students were able to take or use their own images, this would be another great way to connect. I think this would be fun and engaging, and capitalize on their technological interest, as well as capture their creative sides.

Using Picnik would also be fun. I didn't alter my photos except to crop them to manageable sizes. I did play around with colors, and it was fun to see the photos in different colors. I didn't like how that fit, so I didn't use it. In retrospect, I could have added stickers or even text boxes for the students to show thought bubbles about reading. That would have worked. Hindsight is 20/20! However, I plan to use this for my own personal photos. I told my husband about it and he is very interested. He uses Microsoft Paint in order to "fix" images. We used to have a pirated copy of Microsoft Picture It, which allowed us to fix red eye, or erase dust on very old images and make them like new. I think this is a much better program. I think students would have an absolute ball with Picnik. They could change colors, add art/stickers, and really be able to express themselves with their images. Talk about making things personal to make that connection.

I'm hoping to be able to teach summer school this year, and teach language arts or reading, not the intervention program that I do. If I'm able, I plan to do a lot with Animoto and possibly PhotoStory, and Picnik. I have time to plan what I can do, especially with pictures, cameras and flashdrives. I'm even trying to figure out a way I could work this in to my class. It'll have to probably come at the end of the year, like the last week of school, but I think we could do some fun stuff!