Movenote – Another Easy Free Tool for Creating Digital Learning Content

Here's another wonderful, easy to use app that makes it easy for teachers to create content for digital learning or let students create content!

In the last few weeks, we've featured a few great free web tools that make it easy to take existing digital content and create a richer presentation that can be delivered across the web (see Recommended Posts below for more). Here's another one – Movenote.com.

One nice thing about Movenote is that it can be used a variety of devices. Here's a 1 minute overview:

I have communicated with the folks at Movenote, seeking testimonials from teachers who use the product, and they had no problem offering a nice set of them! So … heeerree's Movenote!

Teacher: Todd Nesloney

School: Brenham, Texas

Here is a Movenote of Todd telling us how he has used Movenote and why he loves it. Note that Todd comes from a school with a very tight budget, where many students have very limited access to technology, yet Movenote is integral to some of the work students do in his elementary grade classroom. http://www.movenote.com/v/kNyKgBEzlH0w5

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Teacher: Allan Schneitz

School: Kaisavuori lower upper secondary school in Kauniainen, Finland

“Foreign educators often ask me how is it possible that Finland has been one of the top 3 countries in PISA studies for many years in spite of shorter school days and less tests? Yet, Finnish students spend a lot less time in the classroom than their peers in other countries.

I dare say that the Finnish school is as good as its teachers are. With well-trained teachers and enthusiasm in the field we also find a lot of innovation.

Trust between the stakeholders plays also a major part in success. The trust leads to freedoms in the job itself encourages Finnish Teachers to be more committed, enthusiastic and innovative. It is an honor to be trusted professional with a lot of freedom to make decisions concerning methods and materials.

Our school,  the Kasavuori lower and upper secondary school in Kauniainen, also known as the Dream School, promotes innovative use of technology in education. Our aim is to develop tools that results in school bags light as a cloud. This means that learning projects and materials are available where there is access to the Internet. Accessible and easy to use technology enables various forms of project based- and collaborative learning. It empowers and engages our learners, who gradually become more self-directed and learn to take responsibility for their own learning while the teacher acts as a facilitator and a guide on the side. The world is changing, why shouldn’t our schools?

Movenote is a good example of engaging mobile technology. Presentations, produced by students or by teachers, can be produced and shared via Google Drive, Dropbox or other tools. It is easy and fun to use. Movenote combines the mobility and flexibility with the social nature of the learning environment of the future. Movenote is a great tool that fits the Dream School idea of flexible and ubiquitous learning environments.

Education is moving to the 21st century where place and time is no longer relevant, where learning can be web-based and where personalization is key and where e-mails are replaced by personal messages with a face and a voice. Tools like Movenote facilitate group work, enable personal messaging, commentary, instructions and guidance for teachers and students.

The Dream School and other technology aided education concepts are not just a possibility, but inevitable. Education can’t always be one, or even ten, steps behind from everything else. Teachers have to step away from the chalkboard. There are so many opportunities for you and your students if you just look outside the box that we now call the traditional classroom.”

Allan Schneitz
Co-ordinator of The Dream School project, Kasavuori School, Finland +358 41 503 2119, allan.schneitz@dreamschool.fi

You can also check out my Movenote on Dream Schools: http://www.movenote.com/v/s7SrU36ZSa4L8

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Teacher: Jennifer Scheffer

School: Burlington High School, Massachusetts

“Movenote is an excellent alternative to a standard presentation. This free application, which is available on the web or on an iPad, iPhone, or Android device, allows students to pull in content from their camera roll or from Google Drive and create a presentation with audio and video. Movenote allows students to demonstrate their creativity and communication skills. It can also be used collaboratively and teams of students can create an engaging group presentation. Movenote is quick and easy to use in virtually all content areas. Additionally, teachers could create Movenotes and use the tool to flip lessons or explain the learning goals for the day in the event they are absent. Movenote is definitely a must try for teachers who are looking for innovative ways to engage their students.”

http://www.movenote.com/v/0Zf0qHMSYENAZ

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Teacher: Ari Alamäki DR

School: Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences

“We used movenote at Haaga-Helia university of applied sciences in a course about cloud-services. The course was for both bachelor students and MBA students. The course was mostly done virtually through the Moodle platform. The course started with a brief face to face lecture explaining the goals of the course and the assignment.

The students had to choose between writing a report on either a technological or business approach on any chosen cloud service. The report was to be 20-50 pages long. In addition to the report the students were asked to make a 2-3 minute movenote presentation to sum up the course. The links to the movenote presentations were sent to the Moodle platform where they were available for the teacher and students. All the course material was also available for the students on Moodle.

The course task was done in groups of 2-3. This resulted in creative uses of video for movenote. Some groups even edited their video before including it with the slides. The themes of the reports and presentations depended on the students. Since many of them were working already, they had to do with their work. Eg. A woman working in HR did her report on how cloud services were used in HR.

The format the video was put into was: first minute about the starting point for the project, second is about what they found out during the research and the third minute was for own hypotheses and conclusions.

Movenote provided a great way to sum up the course. From the point of view of the teachers, the movenotes were a great starting point for reading the 20-50 page reports. To see and hear the student tell you about the 3 month course in their own words was a pleasant experience and added a new depth to the assignment. Students were also able to watch everyone's presentation independently in their own time and thus get to easily learn about other people's topics. Movenote also made the course more collaborative.

The app was easy to find. Students were just instructed to find the app at the chrome store and sign in. There were no problems with the use. It was also possible to do the presentation on a mobile device. Movenote was simply an extra app that was easily linked up to the Moodle platform.

I most definitely recommend other teachers to use movenote in the classroom. We are already starting a new movenote assignment with the Finnish language teachers here at Haaga-Helia university of applied sciences. A lot of university courses have report or essay assignments, movenote adds a new element and enriches the course.”

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Obviously these educators are passionate about what Movenote has enabled them to do. Have you checked out Movenote yet?

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
How to Create Your own Online Lessons and Courses With Versal.com
Create Digital Learning Content By Easily Combining Parts of One or More Videos with Images, Text, and Audit with Metta
Tackk – An Easy Free Tool for Creating Digital Assignments, Blended or Flipped Content