Tech Tip Tuesday–Microsoft Photostory 3

Microsoft Photostory 3

Overview:
Microsoft has put out this wonderful, free program for making short movies or presentations.  Students import still pictures, add their voice narration, music, and effects and then are able to turn it into a .wmv movie file (Windows Media Player file).  This is a great alternative to the regular class presentation.  I have seen this used successfully with 3rd, 6th, and 8th graders—it’s very versatile!  Here at ISP we just did a project with the 6^th grade social studies classes with Photostory. The students researched a region of the Americas and then presented their information with the Photostory.  Students were extremely engaged in the project and produced some great work!

Materials Needed:

• Free Microsoft Photostory 3 Download (found here)
• Computers with Photostory 3 installed
• A Microphone for each computer (these can be mics already in the computer, external mics, or mics on a headset!)
• Access to copyright free pictures (try a Google “Permission to Use” search in the advanced search options)
• Creativity!

Student Example:

Microsoft Photostory 3 Example

Mallory Goetz
ISP Middle and High School Librarian

www.yourlibrary.yolasites.com

Presentation Tools OTHER than PowerPoint

If you are like me, every time someone shows me a PowerPoint presentation, part of my brain shuts down.  PowerPoint is a good tool, but a tool that has been greatly overused.  Instead of having your stu­dents use PowerPoint in the classroom, why not suggest one of these alter­natives?

Prezi is a zooming digital presentation editor. It’s Powerpoint on steroids! What did he say? STEROIDS! There’ll be mandatory testing in the future. Type text, embed pictures, and insert video are all features that Prezi puts forth to creators. Unlike Powerpoint, Prezi is free and extremely portable. Because it’s web based, Prezi can be created and shown on any computer with web access. If there is no web access available during your presentation, a downloadable version can be obtained to show offline anywhere. No other software needed, not even flash! Prezi also performs quite well in creating a visual organizer. As they claim on their site, “With the help of Prezi you can create maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings and present in a nonlinear way.”

Glogster is a social network that allows users to create free interactive posters, or glogs. A glog, short for graphical blog, is an interactive multimedia image. It looks like a poster, but readers can interact with the content.  Glogster provides an environment to design interactive posters. The user inserts text, images, photos, audio (MP3), videos, special effects and other elements into their glogs to generate a multimedia online creation. Posters can be shared with other users on the site, embedded in external wikis or blogs, and shared via many social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.  Glogs can also be exported and saved to computer-compatible formats.

Questions or comments?  Do you have something to contribute?  Email Warren Griffiths, Technology Integration Coordinator at wgriffiths@isp.edu.pa