Photo story is a software where you can make a slideshow with photos. You can take photographs yourself or use photos from internet. But remember that you have to know if you are allowed to use the photos you have downloaded from internet. You can also choose if you want to put words to the photos and even use a microphone recording your own voice narration to the photo story. If you want you can put background music into the presentation.
This software is free to download and it takes only a few minutes. You only need a computer with 400MB available hard disk space and of course a microphone to record narration.
As teacher you can make an inspiring photo story you can show your pupils before starting a new theme or project. You can also use photo story to make a presentation to learn the pupils something in a funny way. I think this is a good possibility to show the parents what`s happening in school. You can show it on a parent-teacher association meeting or the pupils can send the story by mail to their parents. You have to be careful when you will present the stories. It´s important to have permission showing the pupils in the photo stories for other people.
The pupils can make stories about what they are doing in school. They can tell stories about their lives, interests and so on. This would be a different way to report to their classmates, and maybe an easier way for the more shyer pupils.
I think this is a funny and delightly way to work in school. It´s simple to use both for adults and children. You need to know some English, but have you done it ones you are able to make it the next time without difficulties. You can do a photo story in about 15 minutes, depending on how big and extensive story you want to make. You can save it and come back later finish it.
Photo story doesn´t contain many different funtions, but it´s enough making a very nice presentation.
Hi Eva
ReplyDeleteI think you have done a good description of Photo Story, how you can use it and what different kinds of technical conditions that are required to make it work. One thing that is important is to check your computer so it has a working sound card, otherwise you can not record a narration.
You describe in a good way how it is possible to use Photo Story in the teaching as an instructive and inspiring part for the pupils and how to make parents involved in the schools activities and work. The possibilities are endless and the good thing about Photo Story is that the pupils can work with their task several times to improve their work which is also an important part of the process. I agree that it is a simple program to use and because it is a free program you can download to all the computers available at a school. For students who not always dare to speak English in the class room it is a good opportunity to speak English which you also pointed out in your blog.
You write about an important thing in your blog and that is which pictures you are allowed to use from Internet. I think it is crucial for the pupils to know which images that are okay to use and which that are not due to the copyright law. You mention in your blog that you can use background music and it is equally important to educate the pupils that music is under the same law as images. It is therefore important for them to know if they have permission to use the music or not. It might be useful for the pupils to know that there are not only pictures but also music to download on multimediabyran.skolverket.se.
Photo Story is really a good ICT resource and it is a program that I will use in my future work as a teacher.
Louise