YouTube Channel: PBS Origins

Annotation

PBS Origins is a YouTube channel featuring short and medium-length videos that cover various historical moments and subjects, which may not find their way into the traditional classroom. The channel would be a great addition to the classroom to deepen students’ understanding and connection to the past. There are five shows hosted on this YouTube channel: Rogue History, In the Margins, A People’s History of Native America, Origin of Everything, and Historian’s Take. Each of the five shows has a different purpose. Rogue History provides “fresh perspectives about outlaws, outcasts, and rogues,” In The Margins explores “obscure tales that offer unique insights,” A People's History of Native America takes a present-to-past approach to explain current issues faced by Indigenous peoples today and their historical context, Origin of Everything seeks to challenge assumptions by highlighting “about under-told history and culture,” and Historian’s Take provides historical analysis of the impact of moments of media. 

These five shows offer a wealth of videos to fit into instructions throughout the year for high school students. Videos like those titled “The Founding Father They Don’t Teach You About” and “Traitor or Hero? The Black Musician Who Spied on His Own Community” offer more complexity in many historical events.  The Founding Father takes the events of the Revolutionary War away from the white men of the Founding generation. Traitor or Hero denies a simple black-and-white understanding of Walter Loving’s story. Other videos like “The Disturbing History of America’s Highways” connect present conditions of America to its historical context and impact on past and present communities. Videos like The Disturbing History of America’s Highways encourage students to see the past beyond memorization of names and dates and form a personal connection to the past. 

Additionally, videos like Traitor or Hero can be used as lessons in historical thinking. Students can watch the video and, as a class, debate if they think Walter Loving should be seen as a hero, a traitor, or neither, then defend their view. A discussion can follow the debate on how the students’ differing perceptions of the same story do not change what Walter Loving did but do inform how they engaged with his story. Another possible classroom activity would be to take one of the shorts on the channel and research the topic further. This research activity can include students independently finding the primary sources shown in the video and reporting additional information they find to the class. Researching the video’s topic as a class demonstrates, with a practical example, how to confidently research a topic discovered in a social media context. With a greater number of the public getting their information and news passively through social media, teaching students to be active in their engagement is a critical step to being informed citizens of tomorrow. 

Just as Crash Course has found itself as a valuable resource for the classroom, PBS Origins can be too. PBS Origins provides additional coverage to Crash Course’s own pool of videos. These shows can be used to deepen and complicate the coverage of units to include representation of communities outside white people and men. PBS Origins has the added benefit of a diverse set of narrators filling the role of historian, showing that anyone can create and tell history. If Crash Course has proven valuable, check out PBS Origins. 

 

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Vimeo

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logo for Vimeo
What is it?

A cursory search on the web reveals an extensive online conversation over which video uploading site is better: YouTube or Vimeo? In reality, both sites offer distinct features for users and have carved distinct niches.

Vimeo caters to a smaller community of dedicated video producers. As a consequence, the amount of videos Vimeo hosts is much smaller in comparison to YouTube; however, what Vimeo lacks in volume it compensates for with consistency of video quality. Likewise, examining the comments on videos posted to Vimeo shows that its community is supportive of original productions—many of which were made as academic projects—through constructive comments. The site's community prides itself as an online venue for creators of original and high-quality video productions, and Vimeo does not accept commercial videos. For educators, then, it is a useful site (and often unblocked in school systems) when searching for safe videos to use in the classroom.

Getting Started

Vimeo provides users with free registration, with more features for users who upgrade to a paid account: a free account provides (as of writing) 500MB of upload space per week, 1 HD video per week, no HD embedding, the ability to password-protect videos, and basic player customization, among other features. The "plus" account, which has an annual fee, provides a much larger upload space, unlimited HD, and no banner ads on the site, among other benefits that expand on the free account. For teachers, it would be best to begin with a free account and based on the frequency make a determination of whether a subscription to the "plus" accounts makes sense. It might also prove beneficial to take advantage of the password protection for videos if there is any parental concern over student videos on the web.

Many video professionals prefer Vimeo for its ability to upload a better-quality video than YouTube. Users are able to watch their videos upload and edit the information about the video while it is uploading. Vimeo also allows different formats of videos, including HD (which YouTube has only recently added as well). As a result, Vimeo can adapt to widescreen videos without leaving black areas.

It is important to teach students how to search effectively.

Searching for videos is a bit trickier in Vimeo. Its catalog is dwarfed by YouTube (which uploads 20 hours of footage every minute, two million new minutes of video every 24 hours.) Nevertheless, Vimeo's 13,000 daily uploads is impressive, especially when large amounts of videos are uploaded in HD each week. For a teacher, a useful aspect of the site is that videos can be downloaded—useful in the event that the school server is down. As is the case of most video hosting sites, it is important to teach students how to search effectively. Broad search terms like "Lincoln" and "rights" should be refined as "Abraham Lincoln" and "U.S. civil rights" in order to find the most appropriate videos for a given lesson or project.

A final recommendation on searching is to simply search for Vimeo history videos on Google. One example is typing "Vimeo Library of Congress" in a search engine like Google. One of the first hits is a Thomas Jefferson's Library Book Explorer video, which leads to other videos such as one on the Early Americas—which is displayed in stunning high definition.

Examples

Using the search term "Abraham Lincoln," several useful videos serve as examples of the multiple benefits of posting videos online. One use is to present student projects and use the video production as a culminating activity. Here elementary school students present their book projects on Abraham Lincoln, whereas another Lincoln video offers more of a short documentary on Lincoln and Pennsylvania that can be useful as an introduction to a lesson. A third video, while in need of audio, does provide good visuals of Lincoln's birthplace in Kentucky; the producer of the video is also part of a larger "channel" knows as Geography Educators, so here is a case where a particular video on Lincoln serves as a gateway to other useful videos for the classroom. Teachers can search for videos on Vimeo through people, channels, groups, or videos. By subscribing to Vimeo, users can save their favorites for a particular course and access them easily when needed.

To browse for specific groups and channels, the "explore" button found in the top navigation is a good place to start. Although Vimeo does not currently possess a "History" channel, the channels page lists the several categories of interest including "education." It's worth noting that education is used broadly and mostly includes do-it-yourself and tutorial videos on a wide range of subjects. To limit searches in a particular channel to course-relevant videos, users can select "search these channels." Likewise, searching for "teachers" within the group page can help educators explore groups whose focus is on curriculum videos. One example is Vimeo for Teachers, which has a wide variety of productions across several disciplines. Although only a few social studies or history videos are currently in this group, teachers can glean ideas for how to use videos in the classroom in effective ways.

Overall, Vimeo is a good site for uploading video productions from the classroom, and with enough digging teachers will be able to find useful videos for planning or instruction.

Primary and Secondary Sources through Video

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Historical Thinking video thumbnail
Question

I need a streaming video explaining primary vs. secondary resources. Please help!

Answer

You’ve come to the right place! Here are several high-quality online videos that teach about primary and secondary sources—and historical thinking more broadly—to get you started.

What is Historical Thinking?

Watch Teachinghistory.org's introductory video on historical thinking to learn about primary sources and strategies for analyzing them.

Thinking Like a Historian: Rethinking History Instruction

Historians and educators working through the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, have created materials on teaching historical thinking, including an introductory video that explores strategies for analyzing historical evidence and learning about the past. The video shows these strategies in action in elementary and middle-school classrooms.

Print Resources

If you are looking for visuals or print materials, why not start by downloading Teachinghistory.org's free historical thinking poster?

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Other Resources

Explore Teachinghistory.org for more resources, including a recent blog on Historical Thinking or resources for analyzing or teaching with primary sources.

Or try watching examples of historical thinking or Teaching in Action in classrooms around the country.

Mark Smith on Visual Metaphors

Date Published
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Photo, tv screens, Feb. 27, 2006, goldberg, Flickr
Article Body

NOTE: Decided not acceptable for publication

With this blog post, three things are going to happen. First, it should open up vast stores of multimedia you didn’t think had any use in teaching history. (I bet you've never used news video for teaching the Revolutionary War!) Second, it will make you one of the most powerful visual creators and communicators in your building. And third (and I’m sorry about this), you’ll probably stop watching television for entertainment, except in small bursts, in about three weeks' time.

Before I became a teacher seven years ago, I was a different person. A television producer and writer. Life’s funny that way. I worked for NBC, CNN, Associated Press Television News and other organizations. I would like to pass along a big secret, the hidden gem, the under-the-table truth on how to produce eye-popping, emotion-grabbing, communicative media. It’s the Visual Metaphor.

Easier to explain than to create, the Visual Metaphor makes up most good media.

Definitions:

According to Oxford Dictionaries, a metaphor is:

  1. A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
  2. A thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, esp. something abstract.

In the vernacular of the peasantry, a metaphor is “comparing two things without using like or as.”

A Visual Metaphor simply replaces the words for one of the two things compared with a picture or video.

Implementation:

When using metaphors for teaching, we choose two things: one is something the students already know; the second is some concept we are trying to teach. The second is usually not “literally applicable” and is usually “something abstract,” as noted in our definitions above. You want to use the visual piece to communicate the second, abstract something.

Watch this video: Uncontacted Amazon Tribe: First ever aerial footage from Survival International on Vimeo.

We see here longbows, longhouses, and any number of artifacts we are trying to teach children about in a K-5 environment. We have standards to cover about Native Americans and global contact which are contained in this video. Of course the video is not about Native North Americans. It’s about Native South Americans and was shot this year.

What is an underlying theme in the video is the uncontacted tribe's reaction to seeing the plane. They are scared.

Okay, that was pretty easy, let’s try another on human trafficking, from Amnesty International. (Note: This video contains disturbing content. Its visual images may be triggering to some students. Use videos that show confusing, frightening situations of helplessness only with care.)

When teaching slavery, we have limited visuals with which to work and the subject is both disturbing and difficult. This video compares slavery to a cattle auction. Most kids who’ve been to a county fair know what a cattle auction looks like. They’ve seen the pen. The video is talking about modern slavery, not the period in U.S. history 100 years ago.

Clearly both these videos are not proper for some groups of students, and, even at the high school level, the cattle market video would need to be stopped before the last bit about the modern sex slave trade.

What is critical is both of these videos speak to the emotions of the participants in situations similar to historical situations.

But what is critical is both of these videos speak to the emotions of the participants in situations similar to historical situations. Universal emotional truths. People caught up in a trade as slaves would have certain emotional reactions and it isn’t too much of a stretch to paint a picture of historical slave trade beginning with a video on the modern slave trade. Since we are using these videos as metaphors, we aren’t saying this is exactly how the African slaves felt when they were brought to North America. Nor are we saying this is exactly how the Native Americans might have felt when they encountered European settlers. However the videos open up a window for getting information across.

People use the framework of emotions to organize information, at the gut level. They use emotional intelligence as a wireframe on which to hang facts and figures. It’s what drives most media. It’s the most difficult piece to bring to teaching history—making it real on the gut level. Great history teachers have been able to do this. My favorite history teacher did.

So much of the traditional teaching of history is the accumulation of facts. The parsing and organization of huge amounts of empty data. It’s the stellar history teachers that make it all come alive. It’s not a big secret that they speak to emotional intelligence, and use that as a scaffold on which to organize data.

As Visual Metaphors, it’s made clear they are not representations of historical fact.

Neither of these two videos are mock-ups. Neither of them are “infotainment” with the types of historical inaccuracies inherent in using sources like Disney movies or Colonial Williamsburg to teach facts about history. As Visual Metaphors, it’s made clear they are not representations of historical fact. What they communicate is the gestalt of the historical issue. They are great writing prompts and discussion starters that allow students to place historical issues and the facts that surround them in an emotional context, without a lot of words and analysis. The information is transferred quickly and visually at an emotional level, and synthesis comes from analyzing and working with the information.

Conversely, what torments many students in history class is the lack of context from the start. It is only at the end of a unit, when a diorama is complete and can be studied, that the gestalt of the historical issues is internalized.

Using Visual Metaphors at the beginning, to provide context for the facts and figures, short circuits this teaching challenge.

Finding Visual Metaphors:

There are many sources of video, audio, and still pictures: Discovery Education, YouTube, Creative Commons. All of these online sources have keyword searches.

Here’s the trick. When searching for visuals, don’t search using nouns (common or proper) for the actual thing you seek to teach. Search using adjectives, for the attributes of what you seek. You’ll find a huge array of metaphorical options.

Find a storage place for your good visual metaphors. They hold over time.

Seeing Visual Metaphors:

I said that after reading this, you’ll probably stop watching television for entertainment. What happens (to people who work with television) is they start recognizing the use of Visual Metaphor. In every commercial, drama, and movie, you’ll start to deconstruct the production process. And that’s, unfortunately, a side effect of becoming aware of this phenomenon in media—but it's worth it to bring the power of Visual Metaphors into your classroom.

For more information

Now that you've used video footage to grab your students' attention, how about asking them to create videos? Mark Smith shares ideas for using student-created videos to teach content in an earlier blog entry.

What if you're teaching an era for which news footage and original recordings exist? Teach with them, of course! Our guide to teaching with historical film clips helps you get started.

If you're ready to start looking for videos to teach with (or tools for creating videos), browse Tech for Teachers to learn more about video upload sites and digital storytelling tools.

Teaching Digital History

Description

"Across the country, an increasing number of teachers have discovered an exciting and innovative way to promote a love of history. Easy-to-use software (such as Microsoft’s PhotoStory and Movie Maker, and Apple’s iMovie) and extensive copyright-free online images (like those found on the Library of Congress’s American Memory site) make it possible for students to create high quality, Ken Burns-like videos combining narration, text, graphics, and historical images and music. Professor Mintz, a pioneer in the application of new technologies to history teaching and research, will lead teachers through the process of creating digital documentaries with their students."

Contact email
seminars@gilderlehrman.org
Registration Deadline
Sponsoring Organization
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Phone number
1 646-366-9666
Target Audience
Secondary
Start Date
Cost
None ($400 stipend)
Course Credit
"Participants who complete the seminar in a satisfactory manner will receive a certificate. Teachers may use this certificate to receive in-service credit, subject to the policy of their district. No university credit is offered for the course."
Duration
Six days
End Date
Website
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/seminars1.html

Glogster

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What is it?

Unlike posterboards commonly exhibited in classroom presentations, Glogster allows students (and teachers) to add sounds, videos, and graphics to text and images. These digital posters can then be shared with classmates and teachers via email, posted on class blogs, or simply accessed through the poster's URL address. There is a $5 30 day trial, and educators can also subscribe to an educator's plan that offers a variety of options depending on the specific needs of the course. A "teacher" plan accesses added features and the ability to enroll up to 200 students while a "school" plan allows an unlimited number of enrollees.

Getting Started

Signing up for Glogster (and its educator's plan) is fairly simple and takes only a few minutes. When users click on "create a Glog" they are directed to a sample poster whose elements can be edited and deleted at will.

Although many students can quickly find multimedia sources online, teachers should emphasize that the quality of these images, videos, and sounds will determine the effectiveness of the poster presentation

Before allowing students to begin a Glog, teachers should allow for some time (either at home or at school) for students to gather images, sounds, and video clips into a specific folder and save them on a computer or flash drive. Although many students can quickly find multimedia sources online, teachers should emphasize that the quality of these images, videos, and sounds will determine the effectiveness of the poster presentation. It would also be wise for students to draft the text that will appear on the poster before beginning a Glog. Elementary teachers, especially, should be prepared to assist students in finding sources and saving them in a folder. Students in grades K–3 may struggle with uploading their sources onto the poster but will find that entering text and personalizing the Glog is fairly simple. Once all the images, sounds, and videos are saved onto a folder, students can begin a Glog with either a blank template or by deleting and editing the default poster. To insert files, users have several options. In the top left corner, the "upload" button allows users to select all the files needed for the poster and save them to their Glogster account. Users can also click on the "link" button if they know the URL of their desired media sources. A third option is to simply record a video, audio, or image using the computer's WebCam and/or microphone by clicking on the "grab" button. Each time a file is uploaded a flashing star will appear next to the category in the media toolbox. Users can also upload sources specifically by toolbox category. Editing the poster is fairly simple as well. In order to change the background, select the "wall" tool and choose from the various background designs found in the different categories. The "graphics" tool also allows users to select from various categories, and the animated characters might prove popular with younger ages. Color, font, and size options in the "text" tool help students format the perfect text for the poster presentation. The only tools unavailable under the free education plan are the "data" and "drawing" tools. Once finished, students can save and publish—selecting whether the final product will be publicly visible or kept private. Even if a poster is finalized, it can still undergo editing—a nice feature.

Examples

Effective posters employee a particular theme applied in a consistent manner through the wallpaper design, font selection, and graphics. Teachers and students can begin thinking about glog design by browsing sample glogs from the site's collection of history posters (in the "Education" category).

One particularly effective poster is a cultural history of the Blues, with a rustic style and video samples of two different eras of the genre. Glogs can also be used to post assignments for students, such as this field trip to Cowpens Battlefield. Its novel use of drawing, as well as making each element a link to more expansive page, is noteworthy for demonstrating how Glogs can be given interactive touches.

History teachers will find the quality of Glogster projects will largely depend on instructions, rubrics, and exemplars that all focus on the targeted objectives of the lesson. In other words, what can students accomplish on Glogster that they could not do otherwise? More importantly, how can a digital poster enhance the learning and presentation of history? Answering these questions, and planning well ahead of time, will help teachers and students to maximize the potential of Glogster in the history classroom. In one example of Glogster in action, Amy Trenkle, a DC educator, used glogging to wrap up her 8th-grade class's school year in a unique fashion.

In terms of visual and digital literacy, Glogster can help students apply content knowledge as they create an original product that demonstrates levels of analysis and evaluation. Generating an exciting and thoughtful poster promotes the higher-level thinking teachers seek in the history classroom.

For more information

YouTube

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What is it?

YouTube is a popular video hosting tool that allows users to create and upload videos as well as browse submissions by other users. At more than 1 billion views per day, it is the most accessed video hosting site on the Web, producing both challenges and rewards for educators.

Getting Started

The YouTube video hosting site, like the Google search engine, has so utterly dominated the market that there are probably few people who haven't heard of it—amazing for a company only six years old! With success, however, comes obstacles for educators. The content on YouTube is diverse and many school system administrators have blocked YouTube for that very reason: just as students can find interesting and educational videos to better understand history, they can also be distracted by non-educational content (some of which might be inappropriate). Regardless of school system filters and restrictions, YouTube can enhance the teaching of history. Here are some tips and considerations to keep in mind. One strategy is to use YouTube for planning purposes at home or at work. Whether you sign up for an account or simply browse, begin by looking through available YouTube channels. YouTube EDU (youtube.com.edu) offers videos aimed at educators from many institutions of higher learning. A quick search for "civil war" within the YouTube EDU portal yields a variety of engaging videos that provide usable content (note: many of the videos in this search are lectures, but others include vodcasts—such as an examination of Winslow Homer by Duke professor Peter Wood).

Examples

Here are a few suggestions on how to best search for educational videos in the classroom:

Teach students how to search online wisely.
  1. Set up your own channel. This approach requires a bit of work up front, but it provides a resource that can be used repeatedly. And once searching for history videos becomes second nature, it becomes easier to teach students how to search for quality content on YouTube. As you find course-appropriate videos, click on the down arrow button next to "Add." Here, you have two choices: either add the video to "favorites" or create your own playlist. "Favorites" automatically displays in your course YouTube channel. In order to display a personalized playlist, however, you must be logged onto your YouTube account and in your specific channel. There, you will find a user menu at the top and be able to select "Videos and Playlists." Check the playlist box, and then check the specific title of your desired playlist. Your channel will refresh and display the specific playlist underneath "favorites." Once you collect a number of videos in the course channel's "Favorites" category, or add them to a specific playlist, students can select from videos approved for the course.
  2. Teach students how to set up their own "History" channels. After setting up a course-specific channel with favorite videos and user-generated playlists teach students how to create their own channels and playlists. This is ideal for long-term projects. Students can also add videos to the course YouTube channel by emailing you the link to a particular video, or if you have created a student-accessible account, students can add videos directly. Specific guidelines and monitoring, though, are highly recommend to avoid unwanted videos on a course channel.
  3. Search for reputable organizations on YouTube. Find channels created by educational organizations such as the Library of Congress, National Archives, TimeLife, or the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  4. Use existing channels as a gateway to other sites. For example, TED.com offers videos from TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks around the world. It hosts videos both on its own site and on YouTube. Arrangements like this provide educators some flexibility by using YouTube as a "gateway" to other video sites. For example, a quick exploration of TED videos via the tags page leads users to talks on history that can be used to generate discussion in class.
  5. Teach students how to search online wisely. Teaching students how to become digitally-literate is now part of many social studies teachers' job descriptions. Too often, we expect students to be more savvy than their elders in using new-media technologies . . . and sometimes they are. Social studies teachers, however, can teach students how to maximize the use of online tools for the research, writing, and production of history. Searching for "Civil War" or "Jefferson" is unlikely to yield desired results (unless students want to watch Jefferson Airplane and Guns N' Roses music videos). Encourage students to use specific search terms and broaden from there if necessary. For example, specifying the "American Civil War" will provide better search results than simply searching for "Civil War." "U.S. Civil War battles in western North Carolina," however, may be too specific to generate good results. Search for a particular event ("Battle of Bull Run") will help, as will using first and last names when searching for YouTube videos on famous personalities in history—such as "Thomas Jefferson."

"Wait! YouTube is blocked at my school!"

Here are a few options that might work:

  • If YouTube is blocked at your school, use write-ups like this Tech for Teachers entry (as well as other education articles) to see if school system IT personnel can allow password-protected access to YouTube.
  • Ask the school system's IT personnel to unblock your teacher-generated course (or teacher) channel on YouTube. You may want to add to this list any organizational YouTube channels of importance to your teaching, such as the Library of Congress or the JFK Library. Providing a particular list of URLs for content-specific YouTube channels will increase your chances of accessing valuable videos. This is a much easier request than providing hundreds of URLs for individual video clips.
  • If all else fails, you may be able to download YouTube videos at home for use in the classroom. Many free sites can convert YouTube videos into files that can be played on QuickTime, Real Media Player, or Windows Media Player. Sites like Convert Direct or Media Converter will convert YouTube videos into an .mp3, .wmv, .avi, or .mov file. Pay close attention to copyright restrictions before copying online content.
  • TubeChop is an online tool to cut, or chop, a particular portion of a YouTube video—perfect for showing a specific clip for classroom instruction. Users drag the beginning and end cursors to desired location, chop, and TubeChop provides a URL address via their site and an embed code.

In short, YouTube offers teachers a wide variety of materials to use in the classroom. As with any online tool, careful consideration is necessary before students begin using YouTube for historical research and projects. Videos are not a solution to ineffective lessons, but when used in a specific—and targeted way—they can enhance well-designed lesson plans, engage visual learners, and help make history come alive for students.

For more information
  1. Baker, Richard Beach & Frank W. “Why Core Standards Must Embrace Media Literacy.” Education Week, June 22, 2011. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/22/36baker.h30.html
  2. Hammond, T. C., & Lee, J. K. (2010). "Editorial: Digital video and social studies." Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 10(1). http://www.citejournal.org/vol10/iss1/socialstudies/article1.cfm
  3. Lesson Plan Idea: Using YouTube in a social studies/geography lesson.
  4. A small but helpful list of links to history-focused YouTube videos.

Animoto

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What is it?

Animoto takes photographs and allows users to add sound and text, as well as control some editing of the video project, in order to share stories through a short video presentation. Students will find the ability to express themselves through new media tools an attractive aspect of Animoto, and teachers can utilize this tool as a way to bridge curriculum and student engagement or develop digital storytelling projects. For students and teachers tired of PowerPoint presentations, Animoto is just as easy to use and provides a wider multimedia experience.

Getting Started

Pre-planning is a helpful first step in creating your video project. Gather all images and video clips and save them in a desktop folder. If a particular soundtrack serves the needs of the project, make sure the sound clip or song is in .mp3 format. Finally, on a piece of paper, sketch out the storyboard for the video—in particular the placement of text in the video. Animoto offers a handful of different account types that vary in price from personal to business.  The "Professional" account priced at $22/month ($264/year) is the most common and offers HD quality videos, more than 25 professional fonts, and pre-built storyboards.

Once images and videos are uploaded, users can click and drag images at will in order to construct a desired sequence. Other features allow users to spotlight certain images or videos for a more focused display during the final presentation...

After users open an account, the first step is to upload photos and videos via three options: from files on the computer, from Animoto's own collection of photographs, or from another website. Uploading images and videos from the computer allows users to select multiple files and conduct a batch upload. Once images and videos are uploaded, users can click and drag images at will in order to construct a desired sequence. Other features allow users to spotlight certain images or videos for a more focused display during the final presentation, add text slides, rotate and/or duplicate images, and delete any unwanted selections. It is worthwhile to note that one of Animoto’s biggest drawbacks is the limit placed on text entries. Text restrictions may prove to be frustrating for users, but one simple way to bypass these limits is to create a PowerPoint slide with the desired text, save that PowerPoint slide as a .jpg image, and then import the file as a picture into Animoto. Step two directs users to add a music file, or soundtrack, to the video either through Animoto’s own selection of songs or your own .mp3 files. Users can also select at which point the music begins. The final step is the editing process and finalization, where users can establish the speed of transitions, the design template, and select whether the video is short (30 seconds) or full length. After all selections are made, users go to the final section where the credit information is provided for the title of the video and the creator(s). Here is where Animoto users will find a second frustration: once everything is ready to go, users select “create video” and the process of finalizing the video can often take quite a while. Nevertheless, Animoto emails video creators once the video is finalized . . . so you don’t have to wait around. (Update: Animoto’s site updates may have fixed the speed delay in finalizing videos.)

Examples

Teachinghistory.org used a quick mock-up video at the 2011 AHA conference to show attendees how five simple images can tell a story. Other video examples include The American History of Chocolate, The Great Exchange, and Civil Rights.

For more information

Animoto’s website, as well as their education page.

USA Today’s blog TechnologyLive looks at the updates and improvements of Animoto.

Review an abstract on "Animoto and language acquisition in the classroom." İrgin, Pelin and Yildiz Turgut "Using Animoto for Language Education" The International Journal of Learning 16 (2009): 1-8.

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