Animoto / Khan Academy

currently Animato and Khan Academy are proving very useful with some of our group.
initial thoughts are about the ease of use  - which is good. With Khan Acedemy there's muh content that doesn't look relevant to us at the moment although some of the Maths resources are being adapted.
I'll get more details from practitioners in the next days or so.
Animoto generated the most interest in the group when first introduced, it looks like its use in the classroom might be limited. I'm waiting for comments from our Media team in case it can be a useful outside the classroom.

Animoto - a practitioner's view

Practitioner’s view of Animoto

In my opinion this tool does have some useful facets, but playing the devil’s advocate it also has some negative aspects. On a positive note, the tool has an easy interface that is “clean” and unfettered with clutter. It is very intuitive to use, and has just a few steps to complete a “project” from start to finish. Being a web-based application it has the ease of access from anywhere in the world, and from any I.T. platform. The finished projects in Animoto have the potential to be visually stunning, and effective. The tool generates the “project” in a few short minutes, and then provides the facility to upgrade the dpi, (at extra cost), to HD quality, and provides a number of sharing facilities such as Twitter and Facebook. The cost of purchasing the PLUS version is relatively inexpensive, and does facilitate some easy “upgrades” of video project outputs.

On the negative side, Animoto does have a “free” version, but limits the user to low-level dpi video output, and to video clip output limits to 30 seconds. The purchased PLUS account does facilitate upgrading video output to 480 dpi (MP4) and extends the length of video time for output to five minutes, but only the expensive PRO account facilitates “unlimited” outputs. There does not appear to be any facility to change the settings of the video output, it runs at the same frame speed, and other than the usual “play, pause and stop” facilities in any video player, it seems to be restrictive. Finally to achieve “web ready” video output cannot be achieved with the free version, the dpi is restrictive and can seem to be blurred or poor. We are likely to continue to use this tool beyond this project.

Overall I like Animoto, and would rate this as 7.5 out of 10, it has some usefulness, but along with this comes some restrictions.  -  Terry McHale  21 March 2013

Quizlet

Tested by our Functional Skills tutor who thought it was a simple to use learning tool which allowed you to create your own activities or use those already posted by others.  Wide variety of activities including - flashcards, Q&A, matching words to definitions, spellings, multi choice, defining terms against the clock.  Suitable for initial or summative assessment. 

Very like activities she had spent hours preparing by hands.

Good for homework as students are able to access on mobile devices and simple to use.

Definitely one for us to use in the future.