Animoto rocks! (The Educational Value of Animoto)

I have never tried Animoto before, but I'm now a very big fan!  It was easy to use and helped me create a video to visually present the theme of my blog.  Images and music are a great way to capture attention.  With Animoto I was able to create a video despite having no prior editing experience.  A video like this can aid students as they explore and develop ideas for projects, it can help them create presentations that grab attention, it can help them create something new they can feel proud of.

Educational Value of Wordle

Wordle is for all intensive purposes, fun.  Who wouldn't want to use a fun tool in the classroom? Despite it being fun and free for all to use, not all teachers have heard of it, use it or even understand it's intrinsic educational value.  I'm not a sales person, but I'll take a stab at the benefits of using Wordle in education.  First, Wordle displays writing in a condensed, attractive format that helps students analyze their work from a different perspective.  It's also a means to summarize content for others to see, kind of like how an abstract is used in a journal article, but in a visual way.  It's also a picture that represents a main idea that can be used by younger students who still get to insert pictures into projects and reports. Oh wait, one last thing, for teachers who really like hanging colorful, smart looking things outside their classroom door to display the kind of neat stuff their class is working on, it's a wonderful combination of writing and art.   Did I mention it's fun?      

On finding the right line of work...

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

-Steve Jobs