I was first introduced to Photo Story at the 2005 Georgia Technology conference in Atlanta. I attended the two sessions offered by Tony Brewer and Susan Walvaren. I was amazed at how simple and user friendly Photo Story is to use. I was very excited and could not wait to get home to download the program and use immediately. I taught my niece how to use the program the same night! She made a Photo Story with pictures that were already stored in the computer. I called a friend who had recently purchased a digital camera and gave him instructions on how to use the program.
At the very beginning of the school year, I was asked by the Teacher of the Year Committee to produce a slideshow of the honorees for Teacher and Paraprofessional of the Year for 2005-2006. I happily agreed to produce the slideshow and I was expecting to use Power Point. After I attended the first session on Photo Story, I knew right away what I would use to make the presentation. I enjoyed putting the project together with Photo Story. Unfortunately, we did not have a digital camera at the time. Therefore, I asked each honoree to provide photos of themselves in action with students. The photos were presented to me on a CD. I used the knowledge I gained from the sessions and completed the projected. Everyone absolutely loved the presentation.
I was asked again this school year to produce another presentation for the Teacher of Year Program 2006-2007. Now that I’m comfortable with Photo Story I accepted with no problem. This year was a lot easier since we now have a digital camera. I had enough time to go to the classroom of the honorees to capture special moments over a one-month period. The picture quality was much better this time since the images came from the digital camera. The perfect song was added to the background resulting in a great production. As a gift, I gave each honoree a copy of the Photo Story on DVD to share with family and friends.
Ironically, I was not able to see the presentation on the day of the program. The Teacher of the Year Program fell on one of the days I was in attendance at the 2006 Georgia Technology Conference. While at the conference I attended the “Technology Projects for the Classroom” session by
Laquita Hutchinson and Teresa Fuller. I gained additional insight on how to use digital pictures to enhance multimedia projects.
Once I returned to school, many teachers came to me inquiring about the name of the program I used to make the Slideshow. They asked if I could show them how to use it. This is exactly what I wanted to happen! Now when I collaboratively plan with teachers, I encourage them to use Photo Story to showcase the work of their students.
I worked with a second grade teacher to help create a Slideshow presentation for a Culminating Activity. The students were studying planets. After students learned about the planets, they were asked to create their own. We selected a small group of students to work with. I trained the students on how to use the digital camera. They each took a picture of their project. Each student wrote a script about his/her planet.
I demonstrated to the students how the Photo Story program works. After the pictures were imported, the students helped me arrange them in the right order. Text was added to the photos and the voices of the students were recorded as each of them read their scripts. They selected music from the Soundsabound Library appropriate for their project.
The presentation was presented at the Culminating Activity and was a big hit! The students were especially proud of their work. Other students and teachers are eager to work with me to create other projects. I am now in the process of working with this teacher again on another project. It is my goal to work with each grade level to produce many works using Photo Story.
