March 3, 2010 Photo Story Assignment
The embedded video below is a photo story that I have composed using both Microsoft Photo Story3 and Audacity programs. Although the process is somewhat tedious, adding photos, music, and sound effects over my own narration of Billy Collin's poem, "Child Development," it is certainly a worthwhile, multi-modal lesson for Middle or High School students.
This lesson proves to be an effective invention strategy in that while engaged in the process of composing a photo story new ideas and ways to improve the piece are continuously evolving. Even the final product, which took a sum of approximately ten hours to complete, can still be improved upon, rethought, or taken in an alternate direction.
Overall, it was a genuinely positive experience using many of my own photos along with supplementary photos from Google Images to compliment the music and sound effects, which can be found at www.freesound.org. This is a great assignment that allows students to closely read a text and essentially make it their own by personalizing it with their creative and imaginative choice of photos, sound effects, and music. Composing in an ELA classroom does not always have to require a pen and paper. The technology used in this photo story is relatively easy to use and the product is close to professional quality.
 *Attached below is a PDF file of my process to composing my photo story*
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