PHOTO STORY

If you want to capture your students and at the same time use a simple and effective resource Photo story is a good program to download. You search for “photo story” at Google.com and then you click on the first link and before you know it, it has been downloaded. Photo story is an easy way to educate the students about something. Especially though you only need to have a working computer with a microphone and loud speakers. Nowadays most computers have the programs that you need to download Photo story.

This resource is a program you use when you want to make (as the name says) photo stories. For example if you want to tell your students about the digestion (matsmältningen) you can show them a banana’s way from plate to stomach with funny pictures and cool sound effects. To make this little story even clearer you can record your own voice to every picture. By making this, the photo story becomes a movie with still pictures. An alternative is to skip the voice recording and speak to the students while the pictures are shown. You can still use sound effects and such. Before I posted this Blog Post I did my own photo story to make sure that I really understood how to do it. I did my photo story like this:

• 1. My first step (though I already had it at my computer) was to gather some pictures, in a map, that I wanted to use.
• 2. After that I import all the pictures.
• 3. Then I add texts in a few of the pictures.
• 4. Next step was to record my voice to every picture.
• 5. The fifth step was to add some awesome sound effects.
• 6. The last thing I did was to save my work!

My first encounter with Photo story was in our previous course at the University. According to me it sounds difficult and complicated to use, but after a short while it became something fun and simple. Me and my group made a story about animals. Later on, when I did my “vfu” for the previous term, I showed this story for my students. They were in the fourth grade and even though our story (perhaps) objects to younger students they become amazed. After this lesson they got the chance to do their own photo stories and the result was very successful. They did their photo stories in pair (two and two). They should write a short story about an animal. After this lesson they have learned how to:

• · working with a computer
• · download pictures from Google
• · use Photo story
• · working in pair
• · practice to write a story (with a beginning, middle and end)

I did this with the whole class (24 students) in a computer room. This is something I do not recommend thus everybody needed help in the beginning since Photo story was something new for them. So my recommendation is: WORK WITH THIS IN HALF CLASS OR SMALLER GROUPS.

Other considerations when you use Photo story are that you need at least one computer. Far more computers if you should let your students try to do their own stories. Available computers are a matter of course for some schools and for some schools, it is not. When you use computers you may consider that technology can make a fuss. So my suggestion is: be prepared with other materials as well.

To sum up Photo story is a free of cost, simple, educational and entertaining resource you can use with your students in all ages. You can show your own photo story in first grade to educate your students about something and you can let your older students make an own photo story to educate each other. With this resource you do not need to have bored students! All you have to do is to search for “Photo story” at google.com and then you will find the website where you can download it!

/ Louise Lidfors