Animoto

@http://animoto.com/education

Animoto is a web-based program free to educators; the education account allows you & your students unlimited access to animoto's programs for six months. To register for an education account, go to: http://animoto.com/education. You have to apply to receive an account. **Be sure to plan ahead! Animoto does not set up education accounts quickly. You should register for Animoto at least two weeks before you plan to use Animoto in your room. When your six months expires, Animoto will email you and ask you if you want to register again. Once you have applied for an account, you will receive an email from Animoto giving you a classroom code for your students to use. In the email, you will also receive a link to instructions on getting started - @http://animoto.com/education/getting_started - and link to a video about your classroom code - @http://www.youtube.com/animotosupport

To create an Animoto video,
 * 1) Sign in and click on "Create Video" (a blue box in the right corner).
 * 1)  Choose your video style - select between a number of styles and when you find the one you like, click "Create".
 * 2)  Users can then create professional looking videos in 3 steps:
 * 3)  Get imagery - Upload photos and/or video from your computer, from the Animoto collection, or from another site (like Flickr). Once you have your images, you can spotlight some of them by clicking on the photo and then selecting "spotlight" at the bottom of the imagery box. You can also add text to your movie in this step by clicking on "add text" at the bottom of the imagery box.
 * 4)  Note, with video clips, check to make sure that the audio is not muted in the video.
 * 5)  Choose music - select music to set the mood from either Animoto's collection (recommended) or upload your own music
 * 6)  Finalize your video - you can choose the image pacing, the length of the video, and revise the video style before you select "Continue". Once you click "Continue", add a title for your video, a description (if you would like), and include the name of the producer. Then, click "Create Video"
 * 7)  Animoto will then produce a professional looking video. You can wait while Animoto produces the video, or you can navigate away while Animoto works. Animoto will email you when your video is ready.
 * 8)  Once the video is complete, you can view it. At this point, you can email the link to others or have Animoto remix the video. To share or edit the video, click on "Video Toolbox."

Advice from Animoto users:
 *  Start small, experiment with the students & discover it together
 *  Do not be intimidated; it is a simple program to learn
 *  Don't be afraid of re-producing your animation/movie; results can be surprising and you can choose the one you like the most at the end
 *  Use the music from the gallery rather than your own
 *  Use a mixture of pictures and video for maximum effect
 *  Make sure you highlight the key photos
 * <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: middle;"> Students may need to learn to resize & save images prior to upload; if pics are not the right size they will come out blurry
 * <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: middle;"> Create data or narrative slides by using PowerPoint slides as jpgs
 * <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: middle;"> Teach students how music can enhance or damage a presentation - the music must fit the mood of the pictures
 * <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: middle;"> Music selection is important; slow music = fewer number of pictures; faster music = more pictures; the project will determine your needs
 * <span style="direction: ltr; display: block; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0in; unicode-bidi: embed; vertical-align: middle;"> Remember - the content makes the animoto; take bland content & throw it into animoto & you have "high quality bland"