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Saturday, March 26, 2011

Professional Development – Animoto, Flickr, & Jing

This week for my professional development piece I chose to make a Jing titled “The Making of an Animoto.”  Having the bright yellow sun at the top of my screen made this super easy.  That is, once I realized that I only had 5 minutes to talk and I was a bit too wordy.  After clicking the arm on the far left, I was able to capture the size of the screen I wanted to film.  From trial and error I learned not to capture the right side scroll bar so I could maneuver easier on each page once I began filming.

I photographed the students’ actual insect creations that they made in art class as they were displayed on the walls around the room.  I uploaded these photos to my Flickr account.  Theorganize and create” tab allowed me to drag the photos that I wanted to include in a new set onto the layout board.  Once I dragged all 18 photos over, I named the set “Insects.” 

From here, I logged into Animoto and chose to create a video.  First you pick a background style.  There are 16 free styles and 8 more available with package upgrades.  From there, you follow 3 simple steps.  The first step is to choose your photos and video images.  You can get these from your computer, Facebook, other websites (like Flickr) or select ones from their collection.  I retrieved my set of images titled “Insects” from Flickr.  The second step was to pick the music you wanted to accompany your visual presentation.  You can either upload it from your computer or use their selections.  The songs are broken down into several categories such as Classical, Oldies, Country, & Top 40 to name a few.  Under Classical music, I chose to select The Marriage of Figaro from their list of songs because I thought it best set the tone of the insects buzzing around the classroom.  The last step was to finalize my selections and confirm them.  There was a short wait while the Animoto was being made.  At this point I chose to pause the Jing so that I wouldn’t use up any more of my limited time.  Once the Animoto was ready, I played it. 

Even though I didn’t script out my audio comments, using Jing helped me to organize my presentation and hopefully address any areas of questions or concerns along the way.  While it was fun to make, I also realized that it is hard to multitask by talking, typing and thinking ahead.  As with anything in life, I got better with practice.  My sixth attempt was much better than my first.  I can see the value in this tutorial at a Professional Development Class because while you are still presenting, some of the initial pressure is off of you while the class is watching the Jing.  The class also has the benefit of seeing step by step how to go about creating something that looks so difficult but it really only takes a few minutes.  Another positive of having a Jing tutorial is that with the link to it, teachers will have access to the tutorial to refer back to it even after the PD class is over.  





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