Weekly Report and Reflection #10: Animoto

Based on my explorations with Animoto I was disappointed with its limited capabilities. With most of the tools we've been playing with I found that they were diverse in offerings, they served a purpose, and were unique in what they offered so that there was hardly any competition. But when I explored Animotos tools, it was simple, not that easy to use, and lacked the ability to clearly transfer information relative to tools like Prezi and Keynote for Mac. 
But then I realized. What is that is the point? What is simple, very simple, is what we need sometimes. When I hit this realization and composed my presentation for my digital portfolio I knew that there was much more that this tool offered. As you can see in the picture below the limited use of text in the slides forces the creator to choose words wisely. 
I think that this tool is unique because of its focus on being minimalist and instead of providing a detailed analysis of a subject, it is more fun and creative by using short blurbs, infographics, fun music, videos, etc. The options are endless when exploring how you would want to disperse your topic. I think its very important as digital citizens to have thee options to best capture every individuals needs as a learner and presenter.
As digital citizens its our responsibility to make information available to as many people as possible, and to communicate in an inclusive manner. That's what I think Animoto can achieve since it is very simple to assemble a presentation, and very easy to access. Because of this simplicity I think it deserves a place in my PLE because when I need to use a simple, embeddable mode of presentations this can serve its purpose instead of pulling out my more intricate Keynote presentations. Sometimes having a playable presentation is all it takes to get the point across. 

Yee, N. (CC), 2014.

What this tool does lack is the ability to really aggregate and collaborate. It serves its purpose as an individuals easy presentations. As I looked through my Feedly reader I was instantly thinking about how Animoto could be used to present the information from Brock University's student post on "Why I Chose Brock University". With the ability to post pictures and the three main points, Animoto could replace the wordy blog post in an aesthetic and playable version. By having individual slides on the benefits that Vanessa mentions, viewers could quickly watch a minute-long video that describes all the qualities that text has without being just another post. As young writer's for the school's blog I would be interested in seeing them try different tools to get their information across, to target the individuals at school that do not like to read, and rather watch videos.
I think the more I get to use various tools, my ideas and perceptions of the usefulness of tools shifts. I begin to see that every tool has a different duty, and that there can never be all-in-one tool because they all complement each other so well. As a digital citizen it is important to realize that and give each tool a try, because to judge an application prematurely does not develop digital literacy; rather, it develops ignorance and unfair judgement. As the final week approaches I look forward to tinkering around with the last tools I will get to play with before I look at my new PLE.

Until then,

Nathan