Animoto

Say goodbye to boring old slideshows with Animoto. Animoto takes your images, adds music and turns them all into a slick professional style video.

Animoto home

Animoto home

You can upload images from your computer, or select those already stored on Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, SmugMug and Facebook. You can add text and then you can select music from Animoto’s collection or upload your own from your computer. Images can be reordered at any time and text can be edited. Selected pictures can be ‘spotlighted’. When uploading music from your own source, you are reminded to check that you have the right to do so. If you decide to use a song from Animoto’s collection, the songs are arranged by genres and you can listen to a sample before you decide to select it or not. Before you know it, your images are presented in an engaging way, set to a rocking track.

Educational case studies

Educational case studies

 Animoto has a special ‘Education’ section, where educators can sign up and give students an access code. This enables students to upload videos to Animoto, purely for the class (or whoever is given the code) to see.

As per most Web 2.0 tools, Animoto basic is free, but there are upgrade options for people who want to make longer videos, burn videos to DVD and so on. For most of us, the basic package will suffice as it enables the user to get an embed or copy code for embedding into blogs and wikis or copying to a multitude of sites. The best thing about Animoto is that is is very easy to use. The site is extremely well designed and intuitive, making it a pleasure to use.

Have a look at this video, which was literally produced in ten minutes. Finalised videos can be uploaded to YouTube, as well as embedded in blogs and other websites.

 

Mixbook

Of all the professional photobook printing services accessible via the Internet, Mixbook seems to be the complete package.
Mixbook
Mixbook

Mixbook allows you to import photos from your computer, Flickr, Picassa, Facebook, Yahoo! Search, PhotoBucket and SmugMug. You can also collaborate online with a friend to decide on picture selection and layout. As per many other Web 2.0 technologies, you can decide whether your book is open to everyone, just to friends or only you. Have a look at one public example below (it can be a little slow to load):

An example of an open (or shared or public) Mixbook photobook

An example of an open (or shared or public) Mixbook photobook

Although shipping (from the U.S) is not cheap, if you want to produce a professional looking bound book of your holiday memories, Mixbook is well worth investigating. However, you do not have to have your book printed. Mixbook hosts online photobooks for free. Again, the book can be open to everyone, friends, or just you.

There could be many and varied educational applications for a Mixbook photobook and students would really love to see their work published in a bound book. The coming break could be an ideal time to put together your own personal photobook. If you do get time to complete a photobook, we would love a comments on your thoughts.