Today’s tech snack can be found at the following url: https://biteable.com/
What is it?
Biteable is an online video maker platform. As with many Web 2.0 tools, it has free and paid components. For the purposes of this blog, I will concentrate on the free features. To begin using biteable, you must sign up for a free account. Once you have created a free account, you are taken to your dashboard. From your dashboard, you can click on create a video. When you create a video you can use premade templates that you can customize to fit your needs or you can make a video from scratch. Regardless, which option you choose, the process is the same. You are given a slide layout where you can add text and rearrange slides. For slide backgrounds, you can pick from the many designs offered by Biteable or you can add your own image from your computer.
Once you create you are done adding slides, text and music, you can preview your video. If you like the way your video looks, you click on publish your video. Your video will then be produced into an online video that can be shared via web url. You can also upload your video to Youtube. No logins or sign up required. You can make as many videos as you want with the free account.
If you want to see examples of the types of videos you can create with biteable, click on the word videos.
There are many pedagogical benefits to using videos in the classroom. This tool is very simple to use, so even young learners or tech newbies can use it with ease. This is one of those rare tools that can be used for all grade levels from Elementary to Higher Education.
It is also a good way that students could also create their own videos for project based assessments. For example, students could use this tool to write their own stories or to make an interactive report about a historical figure. Using an education account, you can create one class account and therefore have access to all your student videos. You can also use this tool to create a blended or flipped learning environment, and therefore, give students time to absorb information about content since they can view videos from home(which allows for more class time for individualized learning).
What a great snack!