Animoto, Share the Story by Photos!

It is not new to use photos and images in the classroom. Earlier generations of teachers brought images into their classroom by projectors, and later ones used computers to show the related photos in a PowerPoint presentation. Now, with the advanced technologies, we can use photos we took or the students took to tell a story, to talk about a topic, or we simply give our students an assignment. With online tools, like Animoto, we can integrate digital photographs in our classrooms in so many ways.

I would encourage my students to share their stories in life with a video they make out of the pictures they have taken. It is motivating if the students have the opportunity to the happy and great part of their life to the teacher and the other students. Their interest, hobbies, someone they feel proud of, or even just their plants and gardens would always good themes to encourage them to be more engaged.

I would also use tools like Animoto to cultivate students’ organizational skills and presentational skills. For example, if the students are asked to express their opinions through photo show videos and text, they have to learn how to utilize the photos and how to organize them to be more expressive. They probably will also be thinking of their audience while making the videos. So using and organizing photos for the purpose of delivering thoughts, building up arguments, or simply just describing an event will provide the students to better organize their thinking, as well as utilizing verbal and nonverbal resources to speak to their audience.

The lesson I created in Animoto is a vocabulary lesson on animals in the sea. I used a few photos I took in a trip to Miami and Key West in 2013. It was surprising that the pictures go well with the template layout although I could have add more texts to make the whole video more engaging and interesting. In a real classroom use, it definitely needs to be more interactive.