Animoto in the Classroom

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This week I have spent some time exploring the Animoto website and thinking about how I might integrate this technology into my future classroom. I like that this technology seems to be very intuitive and not at all intimidating - I can see high school students easily learning how to make videos.

I spent some time viewing the Animotos listed on our class page, but I am planning to teach high school English, and most of these samples seemed to be aimed at elementary school children, so I decided to branch out on my own via Google. I am a huge fan of young adult literature. I review primarily young adult literature on my personal book blog, and I even created a unit plan about The Hunger Games for a Curriculum course a few semesters ago. With that in mind, I decided to look for an Animoto about The Hunger Games.

After doing a little searching online, I found the following Animoto for The Hunger Games, and I immediately bookmarked it to serve as future inspiration. I can definitely see myself using this Animoto (or even creating a similar one myself) as part of an introduction to a unit on The Hunger Games.

I like this particular Animoto because it provides a very brief introduction to the plot of The Hunger Games, without giving away any plot points. The images and the music selected both fit the overall tone of the book fairly well, and it's a short enough video to keep a teenager's attention. I might consider using an Animoto like this at the beginning of a unit, and a more complex version further into the Unit - or even asking students to create more complex versions later in the unit.

How do you think Animotos can best be integrated into a unit plan?