Animoto For The Win!

May 23, 2024 2 By Stella Mulatz

This week I tested out a new tech tool I had never heard of called Animoto. It is a quick and easy video maker. To get started using this tool, I watched one of the tutorials they had on the website called “Quick Start Guide to Making a Video”. This guide makes it super straightforward to follow by breaking it down into 4 Steps. Step 1 Choose a video template. I chose the Class introduction Template for my trial run.

Class Introduction Template

The second step in the instructions was to add photos and videos to the template. To do this you can either use photos from the Getty Images Stock Library, images from your device, Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox. I used images from my device by dragging and dropping them into the frame.

Where you drag and drop the images to upload them

Step 3 was to customize the layout, pictures, clips, and colours of the template to make it your own. During this step, I customized the colours of my slides to add some colour and make every page visually appealing and unique.

Changing the background colour

Step 4 was to add text and share your newly created video. So here is the link to the video I created! Hope you enjoy it.

After using Animoto I realized so many ways I could incorporate this into the classroom. I thought even the activity I did on it, just creating a small introduction video could be such a fun activity for the first week or two of school so everyone can get to know each other. Because of the so many different templates, it has activities you could transfer online such as book reports, and assignment instructions, you could ask students to create a trailer for a book they have read, and there are vocabulary lessons you can adapt to your needs. The possibilities are endless and it is super user-friendly. All the different templates and instructional videos make it super easy to use. I really enjoy and appreciate that it is free, but also has a membership option that unlocks new features.