Digital Storytelling with Photostory

At a recent regional E-Guides Refresher event, staff from around 45 Work Based Learning organisations were shown how digital storytelling can be used to enhance the learning experience. Photostory was demonstrated and was a great tool to use for this purpose. Not only because it’s free, but because its also very easy to get up and running with.

Photostory can be used to:

· Create slideshows using sets of digital photos that are then saved as short videos. These videos can then be watched on your TV, a computer, or a Windows Mobile–based portable device.

· Add special effects, soundtracks, and your own voice narration to photo stories. Then personalize them with titles and captions.

This is a great tool to use to enhance digital images that are captured and used by learners and as a way to engage them with digital media. The finished articles can also be a nice keepsake - finished videos can be distributed on a CD, uploaded to a web page, an e-portfolio or saved to other storage devices.

Of course, Photostory can also be used by training staff to create engaging electronic resources that use illustrations to get a point across.

It’s also worth noting that Photostory doesn’t need a video camera or any existing digital video recordings – just your digital photographs. This makes it a great tool to use to take still images to the next level with no cost and very little expertise.

Recently our National Work Based Learning Co-ordinator used Photostory to easily create a short video which talked about the possibilities for e-learning in the Work Based learning sector. This is very useful as the video itself also highlights a number of other useful (and free) tools that can be used for e-learning.

Here's another short video that will show how you can set up a Photostory yourself.

Microsoft’s Photo Story is available for free download from the Microsoft web site or for a guide on how to use the software click here. Hope its useful (and that if you create your own Photostory do let me know what you think of it…!)