www.animoto.com
2. The main feature for qwiki.com is fairly simple. Remember in the Disney/Pixar movie "Wall-e", the chubby captain asked the computer "what is Earth?", and the answer he got was not definitions nor texts, but a combination of voice and graphics presented in a multimedia manner. Qwiki.com wants to make the technology available to the 21st century. Use it like a search engine, type in anything, and qwiki will automatically search the Internet sources, compile the information with proprietary algorithm, and then come up with a presentation of texts, voice, photos, videos, and graphics. Animoto is a Web 2.0 tool that allows users to easily create animation by simply adding texts and photos. Very intuitive, and the products can easily impress the audience.
3. Level of difficulty is low for qwiki, since all you need to do is to type in keywords, the same way that you do search via Google. It may be a bit more difficult for Animoto, since it requires the skill to locate your photos, type in texts, and edit your photos if needed. The creation of storyline, however, is fairly straightforward.
4. I plan to use both tools in a media literacy course. The Qwiki will be used as a designated website for them to explore, so that the scope of their exploration can be within reasonable boundary. Students should get a feel of how the qwiki works and its limitations. Students will be asked to take a careful and critical stance on the information coming out of the qwiki. The animoto will be used to give students the chance to become an active authoring agent in the Internet Web 2.0 era. They will be asked to find a topic or subject that's deficient in qwiki (they need to explain), and then to create an alternative multimedia presentation by using animoto. I see great potential in using both tools for classroom.
5. Qwiki is being quickly and constantly updated and developed. Its distinctive way of presenting search results makes it worthwhile to get acquainted with it. There are alternative Web 2.0 services other than Animoto, however, as far as I know, it's the most user friendly and easiest one to use. So I'd say it's worth learning too.
I LOVE Animoto!! I used it several times during student teaching, and I kept intending to do it this past year with my real classes and I never got a chance to. A big problem that I realized in my school is that we have pretty limited access to computers, so if you want to have a lesson in the computer lab you have to plan well ahead of time. Hopefully this year I will be able to use Animoto more often. I am actually thinking about using it the first week of school to have the students create slideshows that reflect their "personal symbols." Hopefully it goes well!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these interesting tools! I have used Toondoo.com before, and these seem to be along that same wavelength, where students can create their own animations and pictures, allowing them to create media while expressing themselves. I can make great use of these tools in a social studies class, especially when we are examining the use of media, or political cartoons throughout history.
ReplyDelete-Jasmine