Animoto is an online tool that allows you to upload photos, enter text, and choose a style for the program to transform into a professional looking video.  The free version allows you to create a 30 second video, but that is still a long enough time frame for many classroom projects.  One of my favorite ideas is to use Animoto to create a book trailer.   Just like a movie trailer, a book trailer is designed to get someone interested in reading the book.  You could create a trailer to interest your students in a book or to entice them to predict what a book may be about.  Here is a trailer I created for Chris Van Allsburg’s Jumanji: http://animoto.com/play/ffokpW03Ih8iMqNIxxL7nA

Students can create their own trailers.  It takes a lot of prior planning for students to convey their intended message in only 30 seconds.  Trailers can be focused on fostering interest in a book, conveying the main idea of a book, or even sharing the story elements of a book (characters, setting, problem, solution).

Copyright free images for your trailers can be found by using Google’s Advanced Image Search.  http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search  Make sure SafeSearch is set to Filter explicit results, and depending on your school’s filter, you may want to supervise a student’s search.  Under usage rights choose free to use or share to include only copyright free images in your search.

Please share your Animoto book trailers with us below!