Disappointing but satisfying - Cool Tool #3 - Magisto

For full disclosure, I expected to be able to do something much different with this tool than what I was able to do.  I had selected this tool as a way of being able to document my current pronunciation of French.  Magisto touted itself as a video creation tool.  While this is true, it is not entirely true.  I would describe Magisto as a video editing tool.  If you have already created content, it can put it together into a slickly edited environment.

"London" by Anna and Michal licensed under CC BY 2.0

So, I had to pivot in the middle of my creation to do something different.   Instead, I decided to edit together some of the photos I took in England as a way to share with students.  I tried to pick my most inspiring photos as perhaps a way to launch a creative writing assignment with images as a starting point.

Magisto requires users to have an account; however, you can log in with your Google + credentials or your Facebook credentials.  Free accounts have limitations on what you can do.  For example, your edited video is limited to 10 photos and no more than 5 short videos.  Users can mix both photos and short videos into their edited video.

Putting the media could not be easier.   This is what the editing screen looks like:

Users just select which photos and videos to upload, a style for the editing, and a soundtrack.  Premium (paying) users get access to more types of editing styles and soundtracks.  With just these few clicks, the app automatically makes a video.  The app also crops and edits images to make the video.  As you will see, it did keep one of the photos sideways and, unfortunately, you need to have premium access to be able to edit the video.

Here is what the final product looked like:

This would be a great way for students to create slick multimedia reactions.  In a social studies class, it might be fun to give students a civics topic such as climate change or the history of Akron.  Students could mix pictures, pictures of primary sources, and short videos as part of their response.  As my example shows, it could be a great way to reflect on a field trip.

The best reason to use this tool is how easy it is to use and how high quality the final product is.  I think it would be great to be able to share these videos with a wider audience.  The best videos could be featured on the school's website or even a class's website.

The challenge to using this tool in the classroom will be the fact that students will have to use another app to create content.  So, they will have to take pics and video with their phones and then use this to edit it all together.

Overall, it creates a good product.  It just was not the product I was looking for.