As teachers attend various conferences, the question always comes “Are my kids too young to do this? Can they handle this?” The answer is always “No, they aren’t too young. A well planned out technology integrated lesson will be successful.”

Earlier this week a 2nd grade teacher approached me with excitement “I just learned Animoto and want to try it in my class. How do we do it?” Here is the plan we followed:

Before the students are on an individual computer:

• create a gmail teacher account
• add 20 dummy accounts for the students (our elementary students do not have email addresses and this a great alternative)
• create a folder of images/videos where all of your students can access-this is where they will pull the information for the video. (Animoto does provide a plethora of images/videos but may not be exactly what you need for your project.)
• create a completed sample video of what you want the students to accomplish and share with the class
• show the students how to access Animoto, give them their login information, explain the steps to creating a video
• layout a plan for the students-if they are completing the project over 2 days, give them tasks for day 1 (log in, select style, select pictures and add captions) day 2 (log in, review work, add remaining pictures/text, add music, preview/edit, produce)

Once a student is on an individual computer:

• give students login information (be it on an index card, written down, etc)
• list the day’s tasks so the students know the jobs that need to be accomplished during the computer time
• walk around assisting the students

How did the project go with the ambitious teacher? Amazing. Two students completed the project within the 40 minute block. Day 2 they will be able to create a second video. The remainder of the class did fabulous. Were there questions? You bet. The classroom teacher, lab assistant and school technology trainer were busy, but many conversations occured with the students because as they glanced over their neighbor’s shoulders the best question of all was heard over and over-How did you do that?