What's Your PhotoStory?

As an Apple fan boy I'm supposed to dislike everything made by Microsoft, and, by and large, I do. There is one notable exception, however, and I really like it!  It's called PhotoStory and it has been around a long time.  Photostory allows users to quickly and easily create a "video" slideshow by blending images, voice annotation and music.  Once you have created your PhotoStory, you can (and should) share it with the world using your favorite video sharing website (like YouTube or Vimeo).  For teachers, the possibilities of this tool are endless.  Here are a few examples of how we have used PhotoStory at my school.  Hopefully this will get your creative juices flowing enough for you to try on out.:

WWII vocabulary - This idea was borrowed from this video I came across. The students were really into the creation of it and I believe the words will stick with them for a while. Naturally, now that it is online they can watch them anytime they want too.

Andrea en espanol- This PhotoStory was done in Spanish class and is a bit more complex from the one above since the images were created using PowerPoint and then pulled into PhotoStory.  I really like this project because it provides students with the opportunity to listen to themselves speak Spanish, gives them ownership of the language and can serve as an important element in their portfolio.  You can imagine if they did a project like this three times a year how they should be able to hear the growth in their language acquisition.

Technology-Fueled Professional Development- Ok, the first two were student projects, but teachers can use PhotoStory to create their own projects too.  This example is a commercial for a professional development day.  This one also used PowerPoint first to create each image but everything else was done in PhotoStory.  Teachers could easily create tutorials, summaries, homework assignments (think: video word problems), or even "teaser" trailers for upcoming events and projects.  

So, there you have it... three different ways to use the same tool.  There are countless other ways, so try PhotoStory out today!  If you don't have PhotoStory on your computer, you can download it from here (PC only).

 

If you add in a few other tools you can really enhance and extend any PhotoStory... I suggest experimenting with PowerPoint, Digital Cameras and Drawing programs (Like CoreFX) and seeing how these tools can maximize what PhotoStory can do for you and your teaching.

PhotoStory is free to users of Microsoft Windows.  Mac users, of course, have access to the excellent iMovie, which comes free with all Macs.  Using iMovie, users can create similar projects with the added benefit of being able to add video clips as well (PhotoStory can only handle images and pictures).

More examples of projects using PhotoStory:

• Benjamin Banneker Documentary
• Titanium - This was a sample for students.  They created their own periodic videos.
• Meet the Principal - Teachers could create their own!
• How I Study
• Liberty Enlightening the World - A sample documentary that students followed.
• The Three Pigs- Sample digital storytelling project.  Used CoreFX for drawings.

Need an accent mark... just Typeit

I was working with our French teacher on a project and she was teaching the students how to get French accent marks in Word and PowerPoint using the Insert > Symbols method.  I thought there must be an easier way... enter Typeit.org.  This simple to use program allows students to gain access to the most common accent marks without knowing anything special.  You just type what you want in the text box, click the accent buttons as you need them and then copy/paste into another program (in our case, PowerPoint).

Typeit has support for over 20 languages (Spanish, French, German, etc.) and even has one for world currencies... Since it's web based it will work just about anywhere... slick. Trÿ ît ôüt tôdàÿ