Yesterday, I wrote a post about Adobe’s new digital storytelling iPad app called Adobe Voice. After posting that on Facebook I received a few requests for suggestions for similar tools that can be used in a web browser. Here are some nice web-based tools for quickly creating short videos.
UtellStory is a service for creating and sharing audio slideshows. To create and share your story through UtellStory you can upload pictures, add text captions, add audio narration to each slide, and upload a soundtrack to support your entire story. Completed projects can be embedded into your blog, emailed to your friends, or shared through your favorite social networking sites. Watch UTellStory’s introduction here. Creating my first UTellStory project, available here, took me about ten minutes after registering on the site. To create my story I uploaded pictures that I had saved on my computer, but I could have also pulled images from Flickr. Then I added the narration to each slide. In the free version of UTellStory you have thirty seconds per slide and up to two minutes of total audio. I rearranged my slides after recording by simply dragging them into the sequence in which I wanted them to appear.
Sokratik is a newer service (still in beta) for creating audio slideshows. To create a presentation on Sokratik you simply add a picture, video, and or text to each slide and when you’re done adding slides you can record your voice over each one.
Narrable is a neat service for creating short narrated slideshows. To create an audio slideshow on Narrable start by uploading some pictures that you either want to talk about or have music played behind. After the pictures are uploaded you can record a narration for each picture through your computer’s microphone or by calling into your Narrable’s access phone number. You can also upload an audio recording that is stored on your computer. Narrable projects can be shared via email, Facebook, or by embedding them into a blog.
Present.me is a handy service for recording video and or audio to accompany your slides. Present.me allows you to sync your recorded audio and video to your slides then publish everything as one complete package. Here’s how it works; upload a set of slides to your Present.me account, then use your webcam to record a video of yourself talking about those slides. Your video and slides will appear side-by-side when you have finished recording. If you don’t want to record a video, you can simply record audio only. Present.me accepts a large variety of presentation file types. And if you sign-in with your Google account, you can import presentations to Present.me from your Google Drive account.
PixiClip is a slick tool tool for creating, narrating, and sharing drawings. PixiClip provides a whiteboard space on which you can draw, upload images to mark-up, and type. While adding elements to your PixiClip whiteboard you can talk and or record a video of yourself talking. In fact, you can’t use the whiteboard without at least recording your voice at the same time. Recordings can be shared via social media and or embedded into your blog posts. PixiClip does not require you to create an account in order to use the service. However, if you want to save your recording to re-visit and edit you will need to create an account. Accounts are free and take less than thirty seconds to create.
Animoto is still the old standby in this field. Animoto makes it possible to quickly create a video using still images, music, and text. In the last year Animoto has added the option to include video clips in your videos too. If you can make a slideshow presentation, you can make a video using Animoto. Animoto’s free service limits you to 30 second videos. You can create longer videos if you apply for an education account.
YouTube Photo Slideshows is one of the frequently overlooked tools built into YouTube. To create a YouTube Photo Slideshow you simply upload some pictures, select transitions, and select some music to play in the video. After uploading your images you can use the annotations tool to add as much text as you like to each frame of your video. If you’re working in a school that uses Google Apps for Education, your students can use their log-in credentials on YouTube so they don’t have to create separate usernames and passwords. Click here to find complete directions for creating YouTube Photo Slideshows.
