Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Thing 5: Digital Storytelling & Presentation Tools

Love, love, love this topic! I have had some experience working with some of these tools in the past but it wasn't until this class that I actually spent some time exploring!

Prezi was something that I was already familiar with and have used in the past to create presentations for my students. I find that it is similar to powerpoint but a lot more eye catching. It is pretty easy to use and there is a lot you can do with it. Voki was pretty cool, and I can guarantee that is would be something my students would love to use. One of the things I really liked about it was that you could set up class account and manage student work. I find it difficult at times to keep track of student log in's and id's and to be able to have everything in one place would be great. I didn't sign up for anything but this is definitely something I will be looking into doing.  The video "It's Time for Phoenicia" was great- I always love to see videos that other teachers create and it always gives me some great ideas.

The tool that I decided to use this week was Animoto and I had so much fun using it. It was user friendly, and was extremely easy to use which is great because I know it will be something I can use with my younger students. The possibilities are endless when I think about what my students and I could do with this tool but right away I am thinking about using it to make book reviews for either the new books in the library, or ones that are not being circulate enough. I could also see myself using it with students when they have to do their book reports- they can use this instead and what a cool way it would be to present it.

For the video that I made I of course used my dog Riley as an inspiration. I chose pictures of her from the time she was a puppy to recent one's and uploaded them to Animoto. I then added captions, and chose music for the video. I absolutely loved Animoto and had so much fun making the video. I found it so easy to pop the pictures in and create the movie. The only thing I did not like was the free version has a watermark across the video and in order to remove that you need to pay a subscription fee.

Check out the finished product!

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