Animoto- A Tool Used For Digital Storytelling

I tried a free trial of Animoto, which is a digital storytelling tool, and I found it  extremely easy to use. These kind of simplistic tools catch my interest for the sake of my learners as well as myself. Technology can easily get frustrating and time consuming if you don't know what your doing.

I created a story about my lovable cat, whom I had to put down almost a year ago, and my sisters dog. I created this story to test the waters with Animoto and see if it could be of interest to use in my future classes. It turns out, it is! Animoto has easy upload features, songs and backgrounds you can choose from. Here's my sample I created using Animoto. Check it out!-->My Unconditional Love

Digital storytelling can be a very useful tool to use with you students. Students could create a story about ANYTHING they wish! Unless of course, you decide to limit the topics or choose a specific content area. A specific content area that digital storytelling would work very well with would be English. You could have students create a storyline first, or sentences, and then have them find pictures to upload that go along with their sentences, or story. This way your placing the emphasis on the writing, instead of just pictures. Another way to use digital storytelling in the classroom could be to incorporate social studies using digital storytelling. You could possibly focus on the history of one specific time/event of history, or even on specific person. Students would then be more motivated to learn about a specific topic in history by having to put together their own story about it. Since my focus as an educator is ESL, I would most likely give students the freedom to make their own story once, to get a sense of who they are or learn a little bit about each of my students. Then, I would do a second story that is more language and content specific. Students could possibly create their own narrative to work on their writing and language skills. By leaving the students a choice in what to create, they usually are more willing to put in a better effort, it they are interested in the topic.