Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts
Button created by Leigh Anne Eck for sharing Digital Poetry.
For the month of April, National Poetry Month, my students were totally absorbed in poetry, reading and writing poems, even singing poems. As a second grader, Andrew needed more support for his poetry project. He had never made a video before. I sat with him as he produced an Animoto video of his original two voice poem after the book Seeds, Bees, Butterflies, and More. But hands off. I never touched the keyboard. He expertly traveled from one tab to another, choosing images, downloading to the computer, and uploading into Animoto. Sometimes I marvel at how adept students can be at the computer.
Sometimes when creating the video, my students will let the image and sound lead to revision. I know this is true for me, too. I’ll write a rough draft and when I get to the movie making stage, I revise and adjust to create a visual as well as a written poem. Emily did this with her poem “Cammy, the Elderly Camera” which she wrote after a poem in Cat Talk by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily Maclachlan Charist.
Jacob wanted to write a poem after God got a Dog by Cynthia Rylant. He wrote that God got a genie. He chose the video of a surfer crashing into the waves from the Animoto video files to show that the genie lost his powers. To me, that is creative thinking.
Animoto is really easy to use. The videos look professional when they are complete. I encourage you to give Animoto a try.
Link up your Digital Literacy posts. Read and comment.
Reflections on the Teche 
What a great point that visuals lead to revision. Just wondering, do your kiddos create their animotos on iPads or computers?
We use desktop computers. I don’t have iPads.
Animoto is the best! I haven’t tried it with poetry and images, though, just book trailers with students. I need to try it because I’ve really enjoyed watching your students’ work. Happy Mother’s Day!
These are spectacular. I plan to show them to my kids, but I hope I can hold them back long enough to share the ipads and laptops for their own creations. How inspiring.