There’s no question about it, today’s students are all about self-expression. In fact, the millennial generation is known as “content creators and users.” Today’s students live in a world of self-expression which includes selfies, posting pictures with friends and even creating live videos on an array of social media platforms.
If you’re looking for a way to connect and engage with today’s students, you’ll want to check out Animoto (https://animoto.com/). This web tool allows you to incorporate images, text, and music into videos and slide presentations. With a few simple clicks, you can select your video style from pre-populated templates, select your music from a library of songs and upload your own images, videos, or text.
Videos are a great method for making learning interesting and fun for today’s students. As educators, videos can help you share content in a powerful and engaging way. From the student perspective, videos encourage interaction with academic materials by hand-picking their own images, videos, music, and text. It’s the ultimate self-expression in the classroom.
Here are a few ways you can easily and quickly integrate Animoto into your curriculum:
Animoto for Educators
Introduction – Grab your students’ attention from the beginning of class with a “sneak peek” video. Bring your lesson objectives to life! Get your students excited about the topic of the day, videos can help your students get connected to the material. Say goodbye to boring bullet points on a PowerPoint slide.
Reinforce Skill Sets– Instructional videos are a great way to reinforce learning a new skill. As we know, 35% of students are visual learners.
Virtual Field Trips – Take your students on a field trip without ever leaving the classroom. Example include salon/spa tours, product manufacturing facilities, runway shows, art museums or places that don’t even relate to the beauty industry, just to give your students a fun break.
End of Day Review – Let’s face it, by the end of the day students are overloaded with new information. Why not create a fun video that will help recap all of the daily take-a-ways? Now, that’s how we make our class closings memorable.
Animoto for Students
Introductions – Video is a great way to get your students to know each other without the pressure of public speaking. Students can create a short get-to-know-you video about themselves.
Classroom Activities – Allow students to take ownership of the materials they are learning by assigning in-classroom assignments using Animoto, such as:
- Vocabulary Term Videos
- Current Trend Videos
- End of Day Take-a-Way Recap Videos
- Step-by-Step Videos
- My Favorite Thing Videos
The possibilities for incorporating Animoto into your classrooms are endless. To get your creative juices flowing, I put together a quick example of an Animoto video. Click the link to view.