As I was watching an animated poem on Open Culture I was struck with a new idea for using Animoto. For those readers that are not familiar with Animoto it is a simple video creation tool. Users select or upload images and select or upload audio tracks then Animoto mixes them together to make a very professional looking music video. Animoto for Education gives teachers and students all benefits of a premium account for free. You can read more about Animoto here, here, or here.

Applications for Education
In the past I’ve presented ideas for using Animoto videos to promote or introduce students to a new topic. I’ve also suggested having students create Animoto videos are part of a presentation assignment.
Here is my new idea for using Animoto in an English/ Literature course. To get students excited about studying and or writing poetry have them select a poem, record an audio track of the poem being read, then use that audio track as part of an Animoto poetry video. Alternatively, you may try simply having students select music and images that they feel captures the tone and message of a poem.