Multi-Media & Photo Sites

There are all sorts of great multi-media creation opportunities on the web, as well as a number of services with which you can share photos & movies. The best part? Many of these sites work seamlessly, allowing you to move media from one place to another and then embed them in your site or blog. This way students can get feedback on their project and share their presentations with an authentic audience!

Multi-Media Creation

Animoto
Great site for creating a movie from your own photos and video clips. It creates music-video style movies from your media. Looks very professional and eye-catching but does limit your ability to edit your own material. Basically you upload the media and they (the site) makes the movie for you. Be aware it can take a while for the movie to be made. Great for creating ad-quality movies, perhaps having students make their own campaign “ads” or public service type movies.

Jumpcut
Another great site for creating your own movies. This gives you a little more control over the creation of your movie. Works seamlessly with Flickr (as both are Yahoo! products). This one works much more similar to an imovie or MovieMaker type of application. You control how the media looks and the order in which it plays. Good movie making starter program for students.

Voicethread
Perhaps the #1 multi-media site for educators. Upload photos/video, record yourself, and comment on others all in one place. Kind of like a multi-media version of a blog. Very easy to use and incredibly flexible, you can comment by typing, recording at your computer, or by phone. You can even draw to highlight certain portions of your images. I have seen this used to create how-tos, create unique book reports, challenge students to solve difficult math problems, and to share ideas on a project.

TeacherTube
Similar to YouTube, but just for teachers and educational content. You can’t edit anything here, but this is a great place to share completed movies for a wider audience.

Photo Sharing/Editing

Flickr
One of the top services out there.  Great for storing photos (since they can take up all kinds of space on your computer) as well as for sharing them.  If you pay you can also share video.  One really neat feature is the ability to link your photos to Yahoo! Maps, creating an interactive, self-made, virtual field trip.

Fotoflexor
This is one of my favorite tools. The closest thing you’ll get to Photoshop Elements for free, being the only free, on-line service I’ve found that allows you to layer images to combine elements, for example, putting a student’s head on Superman’s body. You can instantly share, save to your computer, or send to someone else. Great tool for having students create their own visuals.  Also has all the basic photo-editing tools (crop, editing color, etc…) as well as a few fun tools.

Panoramio
Photo sharing site whose primary claim to fame is the ability to share images out to GoogleEarth.  Upload your photos here and seamlessly link them into GoogleEarth.  This is a great way to create a virtual field trip for students, especially since you don’t have to rely on just your photos.

Photobucket
Primarily a photo-sharing site, similar to Flickr.  (Sorry not linked yet-this is blocked at my school…something to keep in mind for any 2.0 site)

Photoshop Express
Free, on-line service from Adobe, the interface is almost identical to Photoshop Elements but with fewer tools. Most notably it does not allow you to layer images to create your own images. Other photo editing tools similar to other sites, with the ability to change color levels, remove red-eye, and other basic photo-editing tools.