Garden Walk Buffalo 2012 -- A practice of Using Animoto in Teaching

Make your own slideshow at Animoto.

Life a like a journey where our hearts wander.

Let's hug the tree, kiss the sunshine and smell the flower.

Delightful blooms fill our eyes and minds.
Let's take pictures, keeping the sweet memories fresh and last forever.

This is a demonstration of employing Animoto in the language classroom. We went to the Garden Walk with a group of ESL students this summer in Buffalo.  I think this video could have been used as a writing prompt after they came back, which might strike a chord and offer certain inspirational sparks to them to retrieve the shared memories and synthesize something original. They may find themselves engaged and motivated in the writing process. Eventually, they can create something to share with others because they experienced it together in such a beautiful occasion.

A good writer should be a good observer and observation enables students to think about the life and the world around them. Hence, they can learn and get new ideas from what they see and what they experience. This animated slides show with music was design to create a relaxing learning environment for the students to be engaged in the thinking and writing process about the how they like the Garden Walk. Also, students would be required to create their own Animoto show by using the pictures they took.

I think observation-based learning makes it possible for students to discover and explore their life. Thus, they can think and build the connection with their existing schema to form new understanding about the world. Each individual has different perspective and angle to see the world; hence they may have different interpretation about the same topic. In other words, they may hold various opinions, draw different conclusions, have different findings. As teachers, we can let them to work together to contribute as a whole to create a much more comprehensive image about certain topic.

Similarly, we can also implement Animoto.com to create other video clips to introduce holiday traditions in certain country. Alternatively, they can introduce some cultural elements in their home countries, like clothes, food, etc. Also, we can make let students to write a memoir since they were young.