More Digital Storytelling: Animoto

Digital storytelling is a great way to incorporate meaningful learning in the classroom. It would also be a great tool for teaching, and there are a lot of free options online. For my digital story, I used a website called Animoto. Here, the user is able to upload video with text, and the website will create a cool slideshow for you with audio. Here is a video I made that would be appropriate for classroom use. It is geared toward using vocabulary relating to clothing items, as well as reinforcing the verb llevar (to wear) in Spanish. It's basically made from photos I had on my computer of random family events in which I describe their clothing. I made sure to use different subject pronouns in the captions to draw the students' attention to the different verb forms.


I think this would be a great tool to reinforce as well as introduce new concepts. It was very simple to use, and I could see myself giving the students a project to make their own digital story. They would incorporate chapter vocabulary and any grammar concepts used as well. One idea in which they could use digital storytelling is for household chores (cleaning, vacuuming, etc.) The students can take pictures on their phones of themselves doing household chores and then upload the pictures to their computer. From the Animoto website, they then can create a short video by uploading these photos with captions for each one (in the target language of course.) The only downside with Animoto is that the free version only lets you create a 30 second video, otherwise you can upgrade to the pay option to create a longer video. The user has to register with their email and create a password, but it would definitely be worth a free 30 second video. Especially if it's a mini-project that is being graded, it's a lot easier to assess (and less time-consuming) than a 5 minute video!

Social Bookmarking vs Curating: A look at Diigo vs Scoop.it

I have never heard anything about social bookmarking or curating until I explored both Diigo and Scoop.it. Both websites allow users to collect, save and share information found on the internet. I found both pros and cons with each website. They are both equally useful, but very different.

First, let's take a look at diigo. It is a great website to save information and websites for the future. You are able to create an account for a specific topic, or even for personal use. I created my account with the intention to save websites for foreign language teaching. It's a lot like bookmarking websites, or putting them under your favorites, but with diigo you're able to save websites easier. With each url (lets say I use wordreference.com a lot) you are able to create different tags. Under this website, I would tag "foreign language", "reference", "Spanish," etc. Diigo saves these tags and organizes each website that you've "bookmarked" on your account under these tags. That way, you can just click on the side bar under "Spanish" and it will show you every website you've saved with the "Spanish" tag to find them easier. I think its very simple to use and you can copy and past the url right into your library. I like the fact you can also share the information and follow other people who have like-minded websites.

Scoop.it is a website where the user is able to pick a topic of their choosing and "curate" that topic. One of the topics I chose was "Foreign Language Classroom Teaching Ideas." You are able to enter different tags (in this case I would type in "Spanish language", "teaching ideas..." etc) and there are different links automatically generated that would fit this topic. You can then create "scoops" under this topic in which you choose a website, article, video relating to the topic and it will save all this information for you. I found this a little harder to use than diigo.

In my opinion, I prefer diigo. You are able to chose exactly which links to put in your library. With scoop.it, I found it difficult to find information relating to my topic. It doesn't give you the option to put in your own links, it works based off of the tags you used for your topic then finds links that it thinks would fit under your topic. Both websites make suggestions for you to add to your library or your topics, which I find helpful, and you are able to follow others on both websites. If I were to continue using one of these, it would definitely be diigo. I find that it could be helpful in the classroom by having students or even colleagues follow your account to get ideas, or help with certain things.