A Middle School Teacher Uses Photostory for the First Time
Posted by Juli on May 12, 2009 in Internet Research, Photo Story 3, Social Studies
Barbara Beers, 8th grade geography teacher at Whitman Middle School, was tired of using Power Point for student projects. (She’s not alone, a fun video – How Not to Use Powerpoint.) With the support of her librarian and Instructional Technology Specialist, she decided to try Photostory for the first time. In this post, you will find an overview of the project phases, links to her project files, and student work samples.
Project Purpose: to create a “sense of place” about a country in North Africa or Southwest Asia. See her project handout for details about student expectations. This project was part of a larger unit that included a UNESCO essay designed to use a research gathering tool which prompted students to gather background information about an assigned country (essay handout).
Key Resources: UNESCO website, eLibrary (great resources for pictures & maps), Photostory3 handout (QRD)
Timeline:
- Day 1: Project overiew and discussion about UNESCO (1 period = 50 min)
- Day 2: UNESCO fact collection/research in library & homework (1 period)
- Days 3: Demo examples, including inspirational video about Matt Dancing around the world (click on Matt’s Place)
- Days 4 & 5: Student work days (4 periods in library – block schedule)
** There was no formal instruction about Photostory3, the demo and QRD (Quick Reference Document) was sufficient to support student use. - Day 6 & 7: Student presentations
Step 1: Teacher, librarian and IT specialist met to explore Photostory3. Mrs. Beers used the QRD to guide her development of 2 model projects, 1 modeling what not to do, and another providing a positive exmple.
Step 2: Mrs. Beers create 2 demos at home, showing both a strong and weak example of a multimedia project. She focused on limiting text and photo selection. Creating a project gave her a better understanding of how student might use the tool.
Step 3: Class project days
Step 4: Student presentations – samples Omar| Jordan
Important Technical Issues:
- Save both the Phtostory project files (.wp3) and the final rendered videos (.wmv) in either student folders on the server or in a virtual teacher drop-box
- If projects will be available on the web, be sure to discuss copyright issues associated with using music from a file or CD. The customized music option in Photostory makes copyright compliance much easier to manage.