Finding ways to engage students is always a challenge. One way to make units more hands-on and interesting is using this website called Animoto. It's pretty basic software, so it'd be easy for students to learn. It also takes you on a walk-through of how to use it when you sign up. Signing up does require an email, so that might be tricky for those teaching in the lower grades/middle school. Animoto has a free version of their site that has a limited number of themes and limits video length, but it still allows you to upload your own music and pictures to create the 30 second film. I'm not sure what the options are if a school district were to be interested in 'purchasing' it.
This would be good to use in a variety of ways, and is in no way just limited to an L2 classroom. Students can use their own pictures or stock ones off of the internet to create a variety of videos. It turns a boring old picture into an interactive show. You can only add captions to the pictures, so the characters are limited, but it also forces one to be succinct. Below is a video I created talking about the weather in German. In this case, it would be an introduction on how to describe weather using noun, adjective, and verb sentences. I could definitely picture doing this with my students. It would be a nice way to either introduce a unit or as a means of assessing learning. For further ideas and examples of how to use Animoto, Kathy Wickline's post Bringing Lessons to Life with Animoto offers a wide variety uses.
Wie ist das Wetter
Nicely done. It was fun to read the German!
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