It is not like me to miss any sort of deadline, but this week due to a difficult family situation I missed the Sunday due date for talking about video. I am grateful for our grace period because sometimes life smacks you really hard and you need a minute to get yourself together.
I have played with video tools before. The one I use most is my iPhone and iMovie, but I have also used Animoto a bit. My son has enjoyed using Animoto in the past and I have seen it used in high school classes for short presentations. Animoto is a little frustrating because your abilities are so limited with the free version. You can't do much with only 30 seconds. You can, however, make a short, effective set of photos, and Animoto's themes and evocative music do make an emotional connection, or as Garr Reynolds says in Presentation Zen Design, "Make them feel something" (p. 129).
Last Thursday night was a beautiful night. We took a couple of hours to go to the beach. I treasure these photos because the light was so pretty and I enjoyed the family time, and this Animoto video definitely makes me feel sentimental. Happiness, true happiness, can be so fleeting.
Perfect Night at the Beach
As for other video tools, I played around with Powtoon. I found it difficult and kind of uninspiring. The seven-click introduction seemed like it would be intuitive, but when I opened up a theme to start a new project, nothing looked familiar. The theme, Blackboard, did not have the stick people that the introduction used, and I couldn't figure out what to do. Not being in the mood to learn something new, I moved on. However, I think this could be a good classroom tool for someone who has patience with it. I know students always enjoy making animated videos.
Finally, I played with Sock Puppets, an iPhone app. This is the silliest thing ever, but like many such tools it is something that young students would enjoy. It is similar to Blabberize except that instead of a photo on which you draw a mouth, in this case you are animating a sock puppet. You can add backgrounds, props, and voiceovers, and choose among several puppets. However, the free version only allows you to record 30 seconds of video, so it is hard to make a long sock puppet play. Fortunately, the paid version of the app is only $3.99. So please don't laugh, but here is my Sock Puppets video. This is an unlisted Youtube video, which makes it a blog exclusive! Just embarrassing. https://youtu.be/ZPElDkRr6DI
Reference:
Reynolds, G. (2014). Presentation zen design. New Riders.
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