Seeing Your Days in Different Ways

I was interested in exploring some different ways of showcasing this week’s Days in a Sentence other than through the regular posting (which works fine, of course).

Here are snapshots of all of our blogs as remixed in Animoto (with a song called “Days” by the group, Bears).


Here is a Flickr Slideshow of our blogs.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I wonder if these format detract or enhance the experience. What do you think? I would love to have your feedback. I have my own ideas but I will add them to what others are thinking.

Peace (in different angles),

Kevin

13 Comments
  1. Thanks Kevin for including me in your group this week; I’m glad I found your challenge through the Comment Challenge.

    I’m a big Animoto fan. It’s quick, easy and has impact. The only problem I see with this one is that I couldn’t read the sentences. It could well be my screen resolution. I loved seeing the blog pages and found a couple I haven’t visited yet. Thanks for the time you take to give us different glasses through which to view the world!

  2. Diane
    You are correct — my vision of being able to read the comments in Animoto fell through. This was my first attempt at Animoto, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Even in the Flickr Slideshow, the comments are a bit too small for weary eyes. I thought about embedding the pictures themselves into the post, but maybe that is for some other time and week.
    I just signed up to get the free Animoto Educational Account and I will see where that leads in the classroom.

    What is interesting is the way the site breaks up images in so many ways and moves them in and out. What is frustrating is that you have no control over it at all. Everything is automated, as far as I can tell. You just trust that Animoto will do something cool with the images you give it. There is a bit of a ‘letting go’ that happens.

    Would you agree?

    Kevin

  3. Kevin, yes sometimes you just have to let go and go with the flow :-). Animoto lets you remix if you are unhappy and I’ve found so far the the most effective way to substantially change your video is to change the music. The transitions are tied to the beat.

    I’ve just received my classroom code for Animoto and am looking forward to some more control over the finished product. With the classroom version you can download the video and then import it into your video editor. Although she didn’t do this video in Animoto, Silvia has created an Animoto-looking product. I really like the impact of her captions at the bottom of the screen. I’d like to try editing those into an Animoto movie clip. Here’s the link to Silvia’s movie. I hope it behaves here:

    http://tinyurl.com/67me2l

  4. Diane
    I did see her video and tried to emulate it.
    Did she add titles afterwards? In a video editor? Must be.
    I would love to know how it goes with your classroom code for Animoto.

    Mary, it is always a pleasure.

    Kevin

  5. I was VERY impressed. What a fun application, and I would really like to try it with pics of my seniors. How do I get Animoto? As for the sentences, well, I like to just be able to read them as text, but I love getting to see everyone’s blog site in Animoto. You get an A.

  6. Kevin, great way to share new web 2.0 tools. I often do this when making a presentation, try something new, evaluate, get feedback and then either reuse it or move on.

    I don’t recall if it is slideshow or slide.com where you can control the speed of the playback, if animoto had the speed feature, I agree it would slow it down for reading. However, your purpose, you got all of us to click and read, keep on engaging us.

  7. Love the Animoto- I haven’t used that yet. I saw some fantastic uses of it on Maria Knee’s Kindergarten blog.
    I think it’s great to have variety of means of expression- writing all the time can get dry- introducing images, music, audio narrative, video, slideshares are a great way to express ourselves in a variety of ways and to keep viewers engaged.

  8. Being very curious, I googled the name, found the site, joined, and quickly threw some pictures into the program and got a nice slide show. I’m definitely going to see if I can use it for the seniors’ pictures, and then upload and share. My students would be so pleased. Thanks so much for the new toy.

  9. Pingback: Outside and Inside « Learning Mosaic

  10. Glad that you gave it a try, Delaine.
    There are pros and cons to it, and there is a free education membership (you need to ask for it) that allows you to download movies, make longer ones, etc. I applied and will let you know how it goes.
    The videos seem a bit frantic, but as pointed out, that might have been my choice of music (but I could not resist the song called Days, right?)

    Cheryl, I don’t see a ‘slow-down’ button. That would be cool.

    Kevin

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