Slideshow Creators

It's nearing the end of the school year, yay! Have you been collecting pictures of students working, science experiments, field trips, and awards? Well, put them in a slideshow to share with your class and their parents. Have 10 or 15 minutes? Here are a few quick and easy (and free!) slideshow creators to use:

Smilebox: A free download with neat templates for creating slideshows, collages, and more. Easily upload your photos, drag and drop, and choose background music. So easy! Save it on your computer, burn to DVD, or share via email.

Photosnack: Web-based, upload photos from multiple places, choose backgrounds, and share. You should be able to embed this to your website too!

Photopeach: Add photos, choose background music, and share! Incredibly easy, and it will pan and zoom through the photos seamlessly. You can download a copy when you are done. Watch again from the website.

You could also use Windows Movie Maker or iPhoto which take a bit more time, but allow for your own personal creativity.

Student Created Technology Projects

Just as we use technology to enhance our lessons, there are many ways that students can use technology to demonstrate or further their understanding. Like the digital storytelling we've talked about before, students can create other projects from in-class lessons and independent research. These projects can be created using computer or web based software. There are hundreds of websites, programs, and projects out there. Here are just a few software and project ideas to get you started:

Software you may already find at your school:

Microsoft Office: Word, Power Point, Publisher, Excel

© Microsoft

Windows Movie Maker
Audacity
Photostory

Web Based Projects:

Glogster ($)
Prezi (There are ways around the "no one under 13" rule and allows you to be the sole owner of the account. Read about it here.)
Posters for Teachers
Big Huge Labs (create magazine covers, movie posters, or other fun items from photos.)
Weebly
Wikispaces

© Prezi Inc.

A student project can be as easy as a Word document or Power Point, or more involved like Glogster or Prezi. Either route you choose, students can add photos, embed videos, add animation, sound, timing, flashy colors and fonts, and whatever else their imaginations desire.

Ten Ideas for Student Created Technology Projects:

1. Poster : Such as: Biography, Safety, Animals, Characters.

2. Video: Such as: How-to, commercial, acting out a scene from a play, book, or their own writing.

3. mp3: Such as: How-to, Public Service Announcement, advertisement, writing and poetry.

4. Digital Storybook

5. Brochure: Such as: geographical destinations, biomes or landforms, biography.

6. Presentation: Such as: biography, animals, how-to

© Weebly, Inc.

7. Map: Geographical locations, places to travel, map routes different peoples have taken

8. Data Graphs

9. Webpage

10. Scrapbook Page


It might be the end of the school year, but it's not too early to think about projects that can be planned for next year!

Digital Storytelling and Adding Technology to the Writing Process

Digital Storytelling is simply telling a story in a digital format. Why tell a story digitally? Not only does digital storytelling use many different levels of thinking, but it also allows for creativity as well as new ways of publishing writing. Technology should not replace brainstorming, planning, writing drafts, and publishing work, but it can enhance those processes. In the elementary classroom it can be used to publish student's work in a new and different way, or as an end product in demonstrating knowledge of subject areas. Digital stories can be written by individuals, groups of students, or as a whole class. Teachers can easily scan in pictures students have drawn and add their writing for a whole class book, or write stories together. Teachers can take pictures on a field trip and record narration about the trip from students to create a digital story. Digital stories can be on any topic and used in any subject area. Teachers can even write their own digital stories to use to enhance their lessons.

So how do I tell a story digitally? 

There are both software and web-based programs that allow for digital stories. It all depends on the expected outcome. You may want students to sit down at a computer and just get their creative juices flowing. There are websites that give students pictures or animations and allow them to write a story as they go along. There are some great sites just for brainstorming too. 

Websites for creative beginnings:

Kerpoof

Pic Lits (Great visuals, good for brainstorming or writing poetry.)

Xtranormal ($)

Zooburst (Basic Account Free, but only allows 10 books)

Pinball (Great for planning writing. Individual or whole class use. Great for Interactive Whiteboard.)

For more serious storytelling you may want students to take a story they have planned, written, and edited in class and have them turn it into a digital creation. You can use software or web based programs to put their writing into a digital story. Scan pictures they have drawn or have them choose pictures from any websites that allow for royalty free use. Microsoft's Photostory and Movie Maker programs are both free downloads that give good results. 

With Photostory, users can make a slideshow of photos and add narration. Motion, transitions, and titles can be added as well. With student work, pictures and writing can be scanned and added as images. Background music or student narration can be added. 

Microsoft Movie Maker allows for adding photos (scanned or in other files), slides, timing, music, narration, and transitions.  There are many similarities to Photostory, but more options in Movie Maker. 

For Mac users, iMovie and iPhoto work much the same way. The iPad has some amazing apps for creating and publishing digital stories too.

Websites for digital storytelling include: (Great for students AND teachers)

Voicethread

Storyjumper

Storybird (Write a story using the pictures they provide.)

Primary Access

Glogster (Free teacher account, $ for students)

Myths and Legends (Good for teaching myths)

Some of these sites allow you to buy a copy of your published work. With Storybird, parents can buy copies of their children's work and part of the funds will go to your classroom. 

If you are looking to create and buy a copy of a digital story (such as a book your class wrote) try:

Mixbook (I ordered a photo book from a recent vacation and the quality was great!)

Blurb (Very easy to use, lots of freedom, good quality.)

Check out these sites and see how you can integrate digital storytelling into your classroom assignments and lessons today. There are more links and a Photostory 3 tutorial by Jake's Online at http://delicious.com/hethomas. (Search the digital storytelling tag.)