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Tracy Tierney secondary ICT consultant considers ways of using Photo Story in the classroom.
If you are considering creating your own video clips with students, but are limited in terms of access to video recording equipment, then Microsoft’s new editing software, Photo Story, may be the answer. It is a relatively straightforward piece of software that is free to download, (www.microsoft.com/downloads ) and does not require the use of a digital video camera.
Photo Story enables you to select images and paste them into a sequence for teaching or presentation purposes. It also allows you to add a spoken commentary or background music. Facilities are also available to allow zooming into or panning across the images you have selected making presentations far more dynamic focusing the viewer’s attention on particular details. The easy to follow wizard ensures that the less confident student or teacher can produce a professional looking video reactively quickly.
There are many ways in which the software can be used in the classroom. Here are three examples that you might want to adapt to your own subject needs.
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Open days and parents’ evenings This may provide an alternative and far more eye-catching alternative to PowerPoint displays on loop. Students’ work (taken with permission) if you do have access to a digital camera or images from the school website can be saved into a folder on your desktop and then used to create a sequence. Titles can then be added to the images and positioned in different places on the screen for maximum visibility. Students may wish to record a spoken commentary that explains what can be seen in the pictures; alternatively students’ interviews and SoundBits could be used. Background music that portrays the work in the department could also be added.
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Mini-documentaries After explaining to students the basic principles of the Photo Story software and how it could enable them to create their own documentaries, students can then be given the opportunity to produce an educational film about a particular topic on the syllabus, for example the life of a character in History or the basic rules of a game in P.E. (This could provide a useful assessment opportunity for an injured student unable to participate in PE lessons over a long period). Students should be encouraged to then break the theme down into smaller topics or key questions that the films need to explore. For example why did Henry V111 want to divorce Catherine? Why did he have Thomas More executed? What can portraits tell us about Henry? Or, how are corners taken in invasion games? Or what are the rules of offside?
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Before students go away to create their documentaries using images taken from a digital camera, scanned in from textbooks or subject-specific websites, they should then storyboard their films and draft out their commentary for you or their peers to assess and suggest revisions. Students should be encouraged to use modern music as the background to their documentaries taking into consideration copyright issues. When they are ready to present their finished documentaries, a good opportunity exists for peer assessment, with one group assessing another against key criteria such as the level of detailed and accurate factual information as well as the production skills.
Director’s cuts
Students could be given the task of editing a partially complete or inaccurate Photo Story documentary. A pre-recorded film clip with no sound could be placed into the students’ shared area or Digitalbrain and the students asked to write and record a sound commentary to run alongside the film. Alternatively a selection of clips could be given to the students for them to place in the correct sequence before putting together as a documentary with appropriate commentary. This could be an effective way of assessing the students’ understanding at the end of a unit of work; it helps keep less motivated students engaged and focused and also involves higher order thinking skills.
