Last year I was the maid of honour in my best friends’ wedding. Two weeks after the wedding she called me up, excitement in her voice stating that, “We got our wedding photos and DVD, you’ve got to come and see them!” I diligently went over to her place and she popped the DVD into her player and I was astounded to see the professional-quality photo montage the photographer had put together. In a matter of days, the photographer had beautifully arranged the best photos into a lovely video and set them to the perfect soundtrack – how is that possible? Now...it’s not that I didn’t think her photographer was capable of such a beautiful arrangement – I just knew that my dear friend was working with a rather strict wedding budget! After playing around with this week’s tools I now understand that the photographer had a few tricks up her sleeve! Today’s Web 2.0 presentation and multimedia tools are cheap, easy-to-use, quick and most importantly effective in creating professional quality presentations...
Look at What I Did: Learning About Presentation & Multimedia Tools
I had no idea there we such sophisticated, yet user friendly multimedia and presentation tools available online until I started my investigation into them. I looked at Animoto, Voice Thread, Slide Share and Prezi. I enjoyed clicking through the various collections of user-created presentations on each of these sites, however was sceptical that I too could create such polished presentations. My favourite tools were Animoto and Prezi so I decided investigate them further for this post.
It just so happens that this blog post is due the same day that the Book Trailer Assignment for my Resources course is due – a coincidence I was happy to realise! In the spirit of Web 2.0 I decided to forgo using Window Movie Maker to create my Scaredy Squirrel Book Trailer and try my hand at Animoto.
Animoto is free to use if you are creating movies under 30 seconds (which wouldn’t work for my assignment), however for a fee of $3 I was able to make one full-length movie. Monthly memberships range from $5 - $40 depending on the quality and sophistication users are looking for. My $3 movie had the same features as the $5 monthly membership would provide me and I was more than satisfied with what it offered. With my single shot full-length movie credit, I was ready to get creating!
I was pleased and delighted to see how easy it was to create a movie on Animoto. After choosing your background style (I chose “Clouds”), you can start adding text and images to your movie. Depending on your viewpoint, the fact that Animoto restricts the amount of text you can add to each slide can be seen as helo or hindrance! While I found keeping my words to a minimum a challenge, I’m happy that I didn’t get carried away with text as my trailer is for young children (i.e. slower readers!). Uploading images was really easy. Since I was creating a book trailer, I uploaded images directly from my computer, however users can upload from sites such as Flickr if they like. Another neat feature is the ability to embed short videos into movies, adding to the creative possibilities of this tool. Animoto provides users with a moderate collection of music from numerous genres to add to their videos. The ability to add sound effects and use multiple songs is not available though – limiting users’ ability to make “real” movies with this tool. Users can decide to play their movie at half-speed, full-speed, or 2X-speed – I chose to keep mine at full-speed as it gives my young viewers enough time to read the captions. After much deliberation over which images, text and music to include, I was proud to have created this book trailer:
I have seen a few people’s Prezis and have been really intrigued by them because of the unconventional way information is laid out. Prezis are engaging as they literally, draw you into them. To get a better idea of how this tool works I decided to make a Prezi about my summer. In doing so I was able to see Prezi’s strengths and limitations in presenting information.
Being new to creating a Prezi, I watched the “Getting Started With Prezi” video. This simple video introduced me to the Prezi Canvas, Zebra and gave me a general sense of how Prezi works. Impressed by how easy it looked, I jumped right into creating my Prezi. Adding text to the Prezi Canvas is really easy to do. Equally easy was uploading images from my computer. Prezi makes scaling images and text really simple; with the Zebra users can scale items in seconds without imputing height and width specifications.
After I had added all of my information I “framed” each section of my Prezi and connected them all in a path. Creating my first Prezi was simple – here’s it is:
These tools were easy to navigate and fun to use. After a good half-hour of fiddling around, I felt confident using them. While simple, these tools create refined looking presentations. I am excited to use these tools in my personal and professional lives as they are a wonderful way to add pizzazz to information and images. I’m glad I was introduced to these tools through this course as I don’t think I would have happened upon them on my own. I learned that I too can create presentations which are engaging, dynamic and full of all the bells and whistles!
A New World: Presentation & Multimedia Tools – My Personal Life & Learning
Personally, I don’t find that reading information online is the best way for me to learn. Scrolling through page after page of text is not only overwhelming it’s downright boring! Sites such as Slide Share and Voice Thread, offer a different way to acquire information. I eagerly went to these sites to see what I could find.
I was rather disappointed with the education-related slide shows I found on Slide Share. Not only were there few, but most were overly simple and thus didn’t provide much information. It is my assumption that many of these slide presentations were created to compliment an oral presentation, hence why they are so sparse. While I appreciate that people are willing to share the slides from their presentations, I don’t see them as very useful for people who didn’t attend the session in which they were introduced. For this reason, I don’t see myself using Slide Share to find information.
Enter Voice Thread...With Voice Tread, audio is not lost, so the presentations that are on it are complete. Even more exciting, other members can add comments to the original presentation offering a “discussion” element to this tool. I was happy to see that Voice Thread offered many more helpful education-related presentations than Slide Share did, making it a more useful site for my learning. I found an interesting discussion as to why teachers should engage students through Web 2.0 tools which I listened to and gained some interesting insight. I stumbled across this Voice Thread offering some practical advice on how to get students blogging – which I’m sure I’ll use in a couple of weeks for my post on blogging!
More than finding information, I see myself using these presentation and multimedia tools to show my learning. Animoto, Prezi and Voice Thread are all tools I see myself using in this program. Each site offers a non-conventional way to showcase learning and share ideas. Animoto allows techie novices like me to create sophisticated movies. I’m looking forward to using it for other projects in the future as it’s as easy to use as Power Point, however results in a much more exciting product. For assignments not too heavy with content, Prezi would be a useful tool for presentation. Since Prezi allows users to create paths, a “show” of sorts can be created – helping to demonstrate a flow/sequence of ideas. As someone who likes to both show and tell (yes I am elementary trained), I am excited to try out Voice Thread. I love that I can create slides which are not too text heavy and supplement them with audio. Not only that, others can add comments and a virtual discussion is born; making Voice Thread a great tool use to present group projects. Animoto, Prezi and Voice Thread are all tools I look forward to trying out to present my assignments in this program.
In my personal life I see myself using tools such as Animoto, Prezi and Voice Thread, to compile photos, music and memories of significant events in my life. I look forward to using Animoto to create montages of pictures from family celebrations. Animoto’s movies are so great looking I’m thinking of creating an Animoto movie for a good friend of mine who is due to have her first baby in a couple months. Once baby is a few months old, I’m going to ask her for some photos and create a video to share at her shower. It is great to know that we no longer need professionals to create mementoes such as photo montages. I am planning on creating Voice Thread presentation of before and after pictures, with explanations of our house reno to send to my family and friends in different cities who have yet to see our place. I really hope my friends and family will take the time to view and comment on what we’ve done so far.
Jazzing it Up: Presentation & Multimedia Tools in Our Schools
In an increasingly budget cautious education system, it is encouraging to learn that sophisticated presentation and multimedia tools such as Animoto, Prezi and Voice Thread are available for teachers and students to use at little or no cost. Teachers/TLs and students alike can easily become proficient at using these tools to create polished looking presentations for academic and personal purposes. Not only that, all are sure to be engaged and motivated when they see what they can produce with the help of these tools.
Animoto
The potential of using Animoto in our schools is huge – children as young as 6 could create simple videos with this tool. This short Animoto Tutorial is a great way to cover the basics of using Animoto with staff and students. After viewing the video one can get a better appreciation of the simplicity of this program.
As a school leader I see Animoto being a wonderful tool for promotion. After trying it out for the first time in 2007, Buffy Hamilton commented on her blog that Animoto is, “a great PR tool for showcasing student work, school programs, or other events/concepts you want to promote.” I couldn’t agree more with Buffy, the quality of Animoto videos makes them an effective and engaging PR tool.
What really excites me about using Animoto in our schools is how it can be used by students. As Keith McPherson mentioned in his article, “Mashing Literacy” published in Teacher Librarian, Animoto initially “hooks” kids with its engaging visuals but keeps them interested because it’s so easy to use – eliminating the technology-induced frustrations which can arise when using other programs. The following are some ideas of how students can use Animoto for learning:
-Create book trailers.
-Virtual storytelling: students could choose a favourite story to tell through images, small bits of text and music.
-Advertisements: students could create an ad to promote a fictional or real product and/or campaign (i.e.: anti-drug message) – see an anti-bullying example here.
-Create book trailers.
-Virtual storytelling: students could choose a favourite story to tell through images, small bits of text and music.
-Advertisements: students could create an ad to promote a fictional or real product and/or campaign (i.e.: anti-drug message) – see an anti-bullying example here.
Prezi
Prezi is a fun way to organize and present information. I see Prezis as a “virtual poster board”, soon to be the norm for school assignments. Easy to use, fun and stylish, Prezis are a neat alternative for presentation as they can be as simple or as complicated as the user wants.
Teachers/TLs, like any professional can use Prezi when creating presentations. Prepping for staff meeting presentations would be simple using Prezi, and after the meeting the Prezi could be embedded into a library/classroom/school blog for others to view at a later time. Teachers could have fun arranging photos of students and student work on a Prezi which would be posted on the class blog for parents to view.
After a little fiddling around, students ages 8 and up could create Prezis with little difficulty. Prezis would be a fun and more modern way (out with the posters!) for students to support oral presentations. Since Prezis can be linked on a path, students nervous speaking in front of a group would be able to rely on their Prezi to guide them through the main points of their presentation.
Voice Thread
Voice Thread is a wonderful tool as it allows users to create slides and annotate them with audio. For this reason, I see Voice Thread as the most useful tool for teachers/TLs and students to use to support and show learning.
As a school leaders, teachers/TLs can use Voice Thread to help their colleagues and promote new initiatives. Voice Thread is a wonderful professional development tool as it allows for discussion. Teachers/TLs can post new ideas/initiatives/questions and their colleagues can respond. Furthermore, Voice Thread could be used for tutorials on using new technologies. Since Voice Thread includes the discussion element, other colleagues with “pointers” or ideas can add to the tutorials easily.
One study on using Voice Thread, titled “The Effects of Web-Based Publishing on Students’ Reading Motivation”, found that students’ motivation for reading greatly increased when using programs such as Voice Thread. While student motivation is high, Bill Ferriter reminds us in his article titled, “Voice Thread” that students need to be taught how to compile and plan thoughtful responses to post on Voice Thread. Helping students to understand the importance of respectful, well thought out and meaningful online participation is a skill students can transfer to all of their online activities. Using Voice Thread with students is not only a learning experience but also a great way to showcase learning. Here are some ideas as to how Voice Thread can be employed in our schools:
-Virtual Show&Tell: Students/teachers/parents could post an image(s) of a Show&Tell item and add a short audio explanation of it. Others could post comments and/or questions in response. This would be a fun project for students who are too old for traditional Show&Tell but who still enjoy the sharing/discussion aspect of it.
-Holiday Re-Cap: Students who have been away from school due to a family holiday, could make a Voice Thread about their trip to share with their classmates. See an example one boy made about his trip to London here.
-Virtual Storytelling: Like Animoto, Voice Thread is another fun way to tell stories. Students can create their own illustrations and narrate a story through Voice Thread.
-Student Tutorials: Students can show their understanding of a concept by making their own Voice Thread tutorials. Using the draw feature in Voice Thread can help students to explain their thinking. Others can post questions and/or comments to increase discussion. Here is an example of a student using Voice Thread to explain the 5-Step Writing Process.
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The presentation and multimedia tools available online today for little or no cost are sophisticated, easy to use and engaging. Kids and adults alike will find them a satisfying way to capture memories, show learning and express ideas. I’m so happy I now know the secrets to creating polished and creative presentations and movies – who knew it could be so much fun!
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