Photo Story 3 Book Talks

Drscavanaugh Educational Technology site has excellent instructions for making a video book talk using Photo Story 3 from Microsoft. Their simple 6-step tutorial includes sample book talks for you to download.

If you are not already using Photo Story 3, you can refer to our Photo Story 3 Simple Tech to help you get started. Photo Story is delightfully simple to use, even for elementary students. It gives movement to still pictures, making it a quick and easy way to create movies including narration and music. Think beyond photographs, too. PowerPoint slides can be easily converted into .jpg images and student drawings can be scanned. Some classroom ideas include:

• Book reports or book trailers
• Digital stories
• Student presentations (e.g. how-to, timelines, biographies)
• Field trip journals

Here are some sample student projects including two from Greece Central Schools:

• Quebec City
• Sammy the Seal book trailer
• Clouds

Just remember to get permission to use any copyrighted images or music.

Read Write Think

There are many resources available at the ReadWriteThink website.
The website supplies lesson plans and resources that include printable student worksheets, interactive activities and online ‘generators’. You can search by Lessons, Standards, Web Resources or Student Materials.

The site is supported by The International Reading Association and the National Council of English Teachers. The focus is on reading and language arts, but there are literature lessons and activities for library use.

Take a look at ReadWriteThink to find something to enhance an existing lesson

or start a great new one.