Tech Module: Photo Story 3 for Windows

Introduction:

Photo Story 3 for Windows is a computer program that allows users to create video slideshows out of a collection of photos. Captions, transitions, special effects, background audio, and narration can all be added to edit and personalize presentations. While other presentation software like Power Point may contain more features, the simplistic, user-friendly nature of Photo Story makes this program ideal for the classroom environment.

Teachers can adapt Photo Story for a variety of instructional purposes. Assignments could range from making presentations about the Civil War to creating audio and visual depictions of students’ self-written autobiographies. Not only are the potential cross-curriculum connections of this software limitless, Photo Story can be a unique and revealing form of assessment. With the opportunity to be creative, students will be more engaged and apt to present their best work.

Photo Story 3 for Windows can be downloaded from the Microsoft website at:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/PhotoStory/default.mspx

The latest edition has been created for Windows XP, though the author of this module has successfully run the program on Vista. What follows is a brief overview of the features of Photo Story. Links to more thorough tutorials are listed at the end.

Photo Story 101

Upon opening the program, the user is asked to import pictures, which can be selected from any folder on the computer:

This page allows basic photo editing, including correcting color levels, eliminating red eye, rotation, adjusting brightness or contrast, cropping, and adding special effects. Any of these options are available underneath the preview window on the left side of the screen. The order of the photos can also be adjusted at this stage by clicking the left/right arrows on the bottom right of the screen. Photos can be deleted with the “x” button.

Clicking the “next” button on the bottom right takes the user to the “Add title” page:

Here, one can add captions and effects to individual photos.

More options are available on the “narrate pictures” page:

Clicking the button with the red circle lets the user speak into the computer’s microphone and record a description of the photos in his or her own voice.

The “add background music” page allows the user to insert existing music or create music for the presentation:

When creating music, the user can choose from style, band, mood, tempo, and intensity to create his or her own unique accompaniment for the presentation.

The last page presents various options for saving presentation. While size can vary, all presentations are saved in wmv format to be viewed in Windows Media Player.

Online Tutorials:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/tips/firststory.mspx

This is the official Microsoft tutorial to Photo Story 3. It provides step-by-step instructions for creating a basic presentation.

http://www.wcboe.k12.md.us/custom_pages/005/MAIN/photostory.htm

This link provides a list of Photo Story 3 resources compiled by Diane Mentzer of Bester Elementary School in Hagerstown, Maryland. It includes tutorials, as well as sample Photo Stories.

Photo Story 3 in the Classroom:

Photo Story can be used for a variety of purposes from student projects to communication with parents as modeled in the following examples:

Mr. McGrain's Fabulous Fables

This teacher from Kirk Road Elementary in Rochester, New York, had his students write fables and present them using Photo Story. Selections of titles include “Anna the Liar”, “The Emperor, Dragon, and the Wizard”, and “Mr. McGrain and Matt R’s Trip to Boston.” The presentations include an audio recording of the students reading their stories, along with a photograph of their handwritten work and any illustrations they completed. On the whole, the project strongly connects the use of technology to the language arts curriculum, as students explore the fable genre and practice their writing and speaking skills.

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Middle P Stories Online

This site provides additional examples of student-written stories presented with Photo Story. The student authors are in grades 3 and 4 from Bellaire Primary School in Geelong, Victoria, Australia and, as described on the “About Our Site” page, they used a combination of software programs to digitally render their original texts and illustrations for use in Photo Story. Finished products range from Brelle’s story about Netball to Ashliegh’s story about Picnic Cookies.

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The Five Finger Test (Choosing a Just Right Book) (from http://www.wcboe.k12.md.us/custom_pages/005/MAIN/photostory.htm)

This Photo Story, from Diane Mentzer’s resource page (see above), was one of many created by Bester Elementary School fifth graders. Students were assigned to model appropriate rules and procedures for the library. While this particular example involves demonstrating the process of choosing an appropriate book to read, other presentations include “The Parts of the Library”, “How to Walk in the Library”, and “Parts of a Book.” All of the Photo Stories include photographs and captions created by the students. This project is a great example of connecting technology with the reinforcement of school procedures necessary for learning and safety.

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Mrs. Keenan’s Kindergarten Website

Mrs. Keenan incorporates Photo Stories into her classroom website as a way to efficiently display photographs of students and activities. Links to the videos are posted about halfway down the main page, organized by month, and serve to offer parents a glimpse of their children at school. For example, under September there is a Photo Story of pictures from the first day of school: http://www.watertowncsd.org/Files/Ohio%20Elementary%20School/bkeenan/Photostories/First%20Day%2008.wmv.

In addition to using the software for virtual scrapbooks, Mrs. Keenan also makes Photo Stories for teaching purposes, including simple, illustrated texts for her students to read, as well as stories created by the class. Many include photographs of her students and are great examples of personalizing instruction.

Affordances and Constraints of Photo Story

Photo Story is a user-friendly program that allows students to easily create presentations of their original work or research. The software is applicable across the curriculum and could be integrated with any grade or subject, from displaying rhymes for kindergarten students to read aloud to allowing high school senior art students to digitally display their portfolios. Teachers could also use the software to create online scrapbooks for their websites. In addition, they could improve communication with parents through creating presentations about their classroom policies for parents to view at leisure. The possibilities are truly endless. In addition, the simplistic nature of Photo Story makes it easy to both learn and teach. Users are not distracted by a large number of options or special effects and can instead focus on the content of their presentations.

On the flip side, students may still be tempted to put more effort into their presentations than into the writing or substance within and there is the added cost of the time needed to teach students how to use the software. Teachers will need to review the relative advantage of using Photo Story software instead of creating projects in a more traditional manner by hand. On a larger scale, teachers will need to ensure they have practical means of time and resources for digitizing student work before incorporating Photo Story projects into their lessons. Not only will they need access to a scanner or digital cameras, they will also need the time to assist younger students with the process of transferring their work onto a computer. Finally, for more advanced users, the minimal editing options afforded by Photo Story may be limiting. For example, there is no option for importing video. In addition, older students may wish to have more control over the editing of their presentations, whether in layout of text or manipulation of pictures. In that case, other photo editing software may be necessary in conjunction with Photo Story.

Teacher Tips

1. Think deeply about the purpose of using Photo Story for your project. If students are writing their own stories, could the same end be achieved by having them create paper books and reading them aloud to the class? What are the advantages to using the technology? Photo Stories can incorporate digital pictures of students, audio recordings of students reading, and even be shared with parents online or at Back to School Night, but are these benefits worth potential loss of classroom time in teaching the software to students?

2. To maximize efficiency while using Photo Story in the classroom, give your students guidelines for their projects. Model the basic structure for each presentation and provide clear expectations for the finished product on which they will be graded.

3. At the same time, leave room for creativity. Photo Story is supposed to be fun and there are many ways students can incorporate aspects of their own personality into their work, from the transitions between slides to text fonts. Encourage students with musical ability to compose and record their own background music, for example.

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This work is licensed by Alice Real under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 2.0), and is an Open Educational Resource.

Last edited by Alice Real on Dec 1, 2008 7:33 pm -0600.