ORTESOL 2010
Tamara Smith and Russell Fauss
Introduction to Photo Story 3 for Digital Story Telling
Participants will learn hands on how to use Photo Story 3 to merge still images, voice and music to create presentations such as digital stories. This tool allows students to create dynamic presentations with panning and zooming effects without video clips; therefore it helps focus language learners on the spoken word such that they record, review, reflect on, and work to improve pronunciation and speaking. The benefits of Photo Story 3 software for teachers are that it is free, it requires little computer memory to store presentations, and it is easy to use. This means that teachers can spend more time focusing on language skills rather than technical skills. Participants will walk away with a basic understanding of how to use software and references to free sound and image resources and other digital story telling resources. (Note that this software only works for Windows XP users.)
Helpful Websites:Where do I Download Photo Story 3
This site also gives you system requirements.
Windows XP is a system requirement for Photo Story 3.
Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 or Windows Media Player 11 is also needed to view the final productions. If you may have Windows XP, you still may need to update Windows Media Player. You can find the update at
If you need more help using Photo Story 3, you can look at the following tutorials and tutorials
How do I help my students plan and organize their ideas for a Photo Story using a storyboard?
This website talks about how students can use storyboard to plan and organize their ideas for a digital story, and it gives examples and templates that can be used.
Where can students get free sound and image resources to make a Photo Story?
When students have access to free sound and image resources, they are seldom tempted to violate copyright laws.
Where can I look at examples of rubrics used to evaluate Photo Stories?
Rubistar
Tip: In the "Find a Rubric" section, enter the keywords " photostory” or “digital storytelling,"
I am interested in using Photo Story 3 specifically for digital storytelling, where can I get more detailed information?
This website tells focuses on the educational uses of storytelling.
This website has comprehensive list of links to resources including examples, tips, resources, and tutorials.
Digital Storytelling Tips and Resources by Gail Matthews is an online book that shares ideas about Digital storytelling and provides links to a wide variety of resources.
Joe Lambert at The Center for Digital Storytelling has created “A Cookbook for Digital Storytelling.” Several chapter of the book are available online at
The book “Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy” by Jason Ohler is available on-line.