Laurie

You are getting close to the end of the year and you are looking for something to motivate and engage your students and staff. Something that will provide some zip to your current unit or lessons and isn't going to send you, the students or the staff over the edge with a ton of work. Well, you are in a luck as you can use a multi-media site called Animoto. Multi-media tool? What is that? Don't panic, believe us when we say you can do this. We know you can because we are inexperienced non-techno teachers in the library who used this tool, on our own, and with our classrooms. You have already come this far, so you may as well invest another five minutes and be assured that yes, you too can be an Animoto star.

__ **WHAT IS ANIMOTO?** __

As stated earlier, Animoto is a multi-media site. Essentially that means you are using more than one form of content; music, pictures and video in the case of Animoto. It is a three step process (yes that' s right three steps). You upload your pictures and videos, you choose the music and then you create your video. The "Create" button and the genuises at Animoto render a polished, professional video that will make you look amazing. We agree with Joyce Valenza (a high school library media specialist) who discusses Aminoto for educators and states: "Animoto is a magically-easy way to grab attention, produce professional-looking public relations products, archive an event, visually showcase our best, and create new visual contexts."

__**I CAN DO WHAT WITH ANIMOTO? **__
 * introduce or s ummarize a unit
 * showcase your library
 * book trailers
 * showcase class trips, social studies fairs, culture fairs
 * digital story telling
 * any assignment you might previously have done with Power Point
 * science projects
 * visual arts to study artist, paintings etc.
 * student video projects
 * insert your creative ideas here

**__CELEBRATIONS:__** __** CAUTIONS **__
 * classroom account videos are private ( no one can view vidoes or contact students) unless uploaded to a public site
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">a wide variety of ways to use Animoto
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">no techie knowledge required (yay)
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">motivating and engaging for students and staff
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">quick and easy to learn

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">With any new Web 2.0 tool there are cautions that as an educator you will need to be aware of so you can be successful. So on that note here is our list of cautions:
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">is a web based application so you must have high speed internet and Flash
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">will not allow for individual editing no fine tuning allowed and therefore the level of creativity is limited to choice of images, photos and music
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">limited to amount of text that you can use
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">copyright - be sure that music, images and photos are copyright free
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">students under 13 are not allowed to have their own account and therefore you must create a master account and inform parents
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">inappropriate material could be viewed when searching for images if you are not on a safe site such as compfight.com

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 80%;">So believe us when we say yes it is that easy. Below are two examples of videos we created highlighting the Caroline Robins Community School library and another to create a book trailer.

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Now all that is left to do is to get in that director’s chair and shout: “Lights, Camera, Animoto!"

**WANT TO LEARN MORE?** Brisco, S. (2008). ANIMOTO. School Library Journal, 54(7), 64.[|http://search.ebscohost.com.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca] McPherson, K. (2008). Mashing literacy. Teacher Librarian, 35(5), 73-75. [] Valenza, J. (2008, April 4). //Announcing:animoto for education//. Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334/post/1560024356.html?q=animoto