Photostory 3

I have a confession to make. I love using Photostory 3 in my classroom. The children in my class love using Photostory 3. In this ever-changing WEB 2.0 enabled world and IPhone loving land, I find myself returning to use this essential piece of software. I don’t want to seem like some luddite fighting against the encroaching WEB 2.0 tide; my children are already using such tools like Voicethread and Wallwisher in the class. However, when I’m looking for some cross-curricular software tools, I find myself returning to Photostory again and again? Is this because I’m stuck in my ways? Maybe. Is this because I haven’t stumbled over something that works, in my opinion, just as well? Probably. Is it because my pupils find it an easy and effective learning tool? Definitely. And yet I feel a bit guilty that I’m saying this; that I use software which might not be at the ‘cutting edge’ of WEB 2.0 technology.

So, as you might have guessed (and at the risk of repeating myself) I really like using this piece of software. Why?

1. Because it is free. We are a small school with a small budget. I have many companies trying to sell me their latest ‘must have’ piece of software. As yet I haven’t seen something that replaces Photostory in my class. That’s not to say there are brilliant alternatives, but my budget is tight and Photostory has proved itself an effective classroom tool.

2. It is accessible – especially for the non-techies among us. After a short introduction the children can just get on with it. This week they’ve used it to create adverts inspired by a well-known food store advert (I know this has been done elsewhere but not by my children). It is a tool that allows the children to see, share and be inspired by each others successes. It is a tool which allows them to preview their work as they go along and so make amendments as they work. It is a tool which allows them to produce a professional-looking film as a final product; something which they can feel justly proud of.

3. It promotes speaking and listening. Enough said? As part of our literacy unit using the Wii game African Safari, I loaded up some screenshots of the game into a Photostory file and then asked the children to imagine that they were on safari and to record a description of what they experienced. The results were brilliant. It was great to share these descriptions with the class and, once the children had got over any initial embarrassment, their self-esteem was certainly heightened when they heard the positive comments of their peers. This was particularly evident with my weaker writers whose narrative writing improved greatly as a result.

4. It is cross-curricular. Although I have predominantly used it in literacy, we have used it in a variety of other areas of learning whether this is talking about a particular science experiment, discussing their findings after a geography based school trip or explaining about a concept in maths.

So there you have it. Is it an archaic piece of software in this WEB 2.0 world?  I would say no and at the moment Photostory remains an important part in my learning tool armoury.  Whether it will be there in a years time I don’t know, but in my classroom at the moment it remains alongside the Wii, Wallwisher, Wordle and (increasingly) Voicethread.

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