Animoto for Education gives teachers online tools to create professional-quality videos for free.
Animoto, best known for the web application that lets users quickly and easily create personalized, professional-quality videos from their own photos and music, today announced a new service exclusively for teachers. Animoto for Education gives teachers, grades K-12, unlimited access to the full range of Animoto's services, both standard and premium, for free. Since launching in August 2007, Animoto has become a popular tool among teachers, researchers, librarians and other educators around the globe, who use it to bring presentations and lesson plans to life in a whole new way.
"Animoto for Education is a true benefit for teachers and students, and gives educators a brand new, entertaining and powerful way to illustrate classroom projects, field trips, lessons and more" said Lance Rougeux, Director, Discovery Educator Network. "The members of the Discovery Educator Network have profited from the creativity and generosity of Animoto for Education and we really appreciate the gift of unlimited access."
Animoto was created by entertainment industry veterans and is ideal for grabbing the attention and imagination of a young audience. Using patent-pending Cinematic AI technology, Animoto thinks like an actual director and editor -- its technology analyzes and combines images and music with the same sophisticated post-production techniques used in TV and film. Teachers simply upload their images and pick a song, and then Animoto takes care of the rest in a matter of minutes, producing videos with the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.
"It's been really exciting to hear from teachers all over the world about the variety of ways they've incorporated Animoto videos into their daily lesson plans” said Brad Jefferson, CEO & Co-founder of Animoto. "Animoto for Education is our gift to teachers; we want to help empower them with a tool to reach their kids in a new and exciting way."
Animoto's technology takes into account every nuance of a song: the genre, song structure, energy, rhythm, instrumentation, and vocals. No two videos are ever the same; even videos generated with an identical set of images and music will each have a completely distinct set of motion design. Videos are produced in widescreen format and can be emailed, uploaded to video sharing sites like YouTube and TeacherTube, shared on social networks, and even downloaded in DVD-quality formats for display on large televisions or projector screens, making them ideal for the classroom.
"We've used Animoto to create opening montages for Parents' Nights, advocacy videos to promote school libraries at our State Capitol, introductions at orientation activities, and capturing memories of professional conferences" said Joyce Kasman Valenza, Ph.D., Teacher & Librarian at Springfield Township HS and Author of PowerTools Recharged. "Animoto is a great addition to a school's digital storytelling toolkit."