Teaching a Tool

I taught my girlfriend, Hilda, how to use Animoto to create a cute video documenting our daughter's first four months.

We started on the web-browser and then moved to the app version, which turned out to be easy to use. I introduced her to the templates and helped her choose photos. She spent the greatest amount of time composing the captions for the photos, which had to "tell a story" and convey important information about the milestones our daughter had reached. It also allowed her to send out a subtle "thank you" to the people who had provided us with nice outfits that featured in the photos.

Overall, Hilda said that Animoto was an enjoyable tool for organizing and expressing herself through photos and captions. She immediately speculated about using the paid version to document our daughter's first 12 months, which would exceed the limits of the free version. This is proof that the experience of using Animoto is motivating and convinces the user that it would be worth paying some money to continue using the app.

In terms of the classroom, I think Hilda's experience shows that I could teach this tool to my students and they would enjoy the process. If I provide them with a topic that is personally motivating, they may become motivated to use Animoto again-and-again as an engaging way to organize and present visual and text-based content.