Animoto: The end of slideshows

First of all, let me just say this - if you have dial-up and decide to use Animoto, you are officially the most patient person in the world. Ok, that being said, Animoto speeds along just fine on our school connections, so as long as you do Animoto projects at school you shouldn't have any problems.

What is Animoto? It is a "video" program (for lack of a better word) that will take your photos to make either a beefed up movie clip or a not-so-boring slideshow. Here is a sample I made pretty quickly using some pics (not great pics) I snapped at my daughter's Choral Society performances this year:



Animoto was created by video and film makers, so there are lots of special features you can use. But the most basic features (the simple ones I used to make the above video) are Upload, Add Text, Add Music, Finalize. That's it. I made a video short which is 30 seconds and requires about 10 to 15 images. No two videos are ever the same. It analyzes the images and music you choose to orchestrate a custom video. You can also Remix it so it will change.

Animoto takes what would be an ordinary slide show and makes it a professional quality video. Animoto in the classroom is a fun and easy way for kids to use digital photos to express their stories.

Be sure to watch some of the many samples they have on the site to get a better idea of what they can be used for. You have to sign in with an email to register, but it is free.

Anyone can write stories or poems!

Remember those fun kits of refrigerator magnets? They have a ton of words or phrases, people put them all over their fridge and everyone plays with them to make stories, poems, phrases, etc.?

Well, Magnetic Poetry has put their kits online for your virtual refrigerator writing fun! They work pretty much the same as the actual kits - on the left hand side of the screen is your fridge - you can pick the background. And on the right hand side is all of your magnets you have to work with.

The kids section has a poetry kit, a first words kit, a best friends kit, and a story writing kit.

This is great for kids who are still struggling with writing, but can read at a basic level. It's also a good tool for practicing sentence structures and playing around with poetry - a very risk-free environment to compose in!

Students can save their creations too. No registration or sign in. Simple to use, ready to go as soon as you go to the page, and very self-explanatory - kids can dive right in and start playing with Magnetic Poetry.