Tool #7:PhotoStory!

Our Love Story (Chapter 1)



Ok, FINALLY! This took me a while to do, but was the most special tool :) I love taking pictures with my digital camera. Pictures are memories! I enjoy taking pictures in my classroom of my students working both individually and in groups. I like taking pictures of them while we are doing a "fun/interesting/cool" lesson as they are engaged in the lesson. I take pictures of my students during math and science. I love taking pictures of them as they are working in their groups for science experiments/investigations. We look at the pictures together afterwards and discuss the experiment/investigation. I have used my camera to take pictures of students' finished work. They just love standing there and showing off their hard work. We can use photostory in the classroom for students to create their own stories (in groups) to show their work in science for example-what happened in THEIR investigation. They can narrate their story, discussing what they struggled with and what turned out well. They can really go through the whole experiment/investigation and share their story with others in the class (for example if each group got different variables for their investigations, it would be interesting for students to share what THEY found using THEIR variables), even share their story with others in the school! We could use this tool in the after school program in science to create a story for each activity/investigation that is done also! Students can use this tool in language arts to create their own stories, illustrate and narrate. They can "publish" their stories and share with the class as well as other students within the school. If our students are blogging (like we are right now) then they too can upload their photostories to their blog and share with a much wider audience! Their parents can also be a part of this audience (if they have internet access at home). I also was able to incorporate my ipod with this tool! I recently purchased an Ipod Touch and have uploaded my cd's to my ipod. I was able to use the music I had uploaded into my Ipod as the music to my photostory. It will be great to be able to use this tool with our Ipod Touches!

I see sooo many possibilities with this tool and really truly enjoyed creating my photostory. I did not enjoy the process of uploading my story though, it took a while but I finally got it and it was totally worth it!