Part of that online experience is a tool called Wildlife Filmmaker.  This online tool allows the user to create a short wildlife film using provided video clips, sounds, and music.  The user can also create and add their own captions to the film.

Strengths:

• Video clips provided
• Uses timeline for arranging clips
• Easy-to-learn interface
• No user registration

Weaknesses:

• Inability to save/embed videos
• Interface does unexpected things occasionally
• Email sharing seems to be broken

Wildlife Filmmaker is a fun little tool.  It would be great for younger students to experiment with creating videos, as the video clips are premade.  It might also be a nice introduction to using a timeline-based clip and editing system for older students (Apple’s iMovie uses a very similar system).  Unfortunately, experimentation is probably the only serious classroom use for this Web 2.0 tool, as there is no way to move created videos from the National Geographic server to your own computer or even embedded them in another page.  You can save videos to their server and retrieve them through the use of a numeric code.

This Web 2.0 application is free to use and has no user registration.  You will need a computer with a broadband Internet connection, and Adobe Flash.

If you are interested in seeing my film, click “retrieve saved film” and enter code “681813297″.