Fusion Finds

My daughter brought home a “foldable” filled with notes on mathematical thinkers, perfect content for a Photostory slideshow. I put her to work, assisting me in preparing for my first Digital Storytelling workshop.

Download Mathematical Thinkers

We found Photostory, free software from Microsoft, very easy to use. The program leads you through the steps of creating a digital story. Recording a separate audio file for each slide worked great. Customizing the motion and adding text was easy. The provided music options are a great time saver for those not wanting to find and import music. If you can’t find any tunes to your liking, you can import you own music. The trickest part was creating title and credits slides, since the program doesn’t provide options for creating such a slide. We used PowerPoint to create a credit slide, saving it as a jpg. We then imported this jpg into Photostory, just like we did all the other images.

We uploaded the production to Archive.org, because it is free and not blocked by the school’s filter. Then I used the Embed Media button in Edublogs to embed the production in this blog post. If you intend to embed the production in a blog post, be sure to click the Settings button during the Save Your Story step of Photostory, and choose “Profile for computer -1 (320×240).” The default setting is too large.

tag: edtech, k12, Photostory, PowerPoint, Digital Storytelling, Archive.org, math

Registration is open for the new The Shape of Things online project by Jennifer Wagner.

• Dates: April 14 to May 12, 2008 (final project due May 12th)
• Grades: PreK - 6
• Description: Based on the use of triangles, circles, and squares, students will create one project (see the 3 options below) and then upload their images to a class photo album at one of the suggested online photo storage locations. Worksheets and suggested activities are included.

1. Students will create a collage or piece of art using ONLY triangles, circles, and squares. The shapes may be of any size, and use any type of material (paper, felt, plastic, jello, etc) The artwork/collage may also be 3-D. Pictures will be taken of completed artwork and uploaded to the online photo storage location.
2. Students will use digital camera and search their classroom, school, city/town, home for pictures that include triangles, circles, or squares. Pictures will be transferred to online photo storage location.
3. Students will use an graphics program (kid pix, paint shop pro, photoshop, kerpoof, etc) and create a Triangle, Circle, Square piece of artwork. Teachers/students will then upload the images to online photo storage location.

tag: online project, collaboration, edtech, k12, math, art, shapes, photos, graphic, The Shape of Things, Jennifer Wagner