Photo Story: Adjusting Music

There is an option in Photo Story to add music to your slideshow. However, some users have discovered that if there is already spoken narration added to the slideshow, the addition of music can overpower the narration. For the most part, it is recommended that you do not include music if there is narration in the show because it can be difficult for some individuals to hear. But if you find that both narration and music are necessary, here is a tip where both can be used in harmony. On the "Add Background Music" step in Photo Story, be sure to slide the "volume slider" down to the "low" end. Then preview your slideshow. If the music is still too loud, slide the volume slider even closer to the "low" end. The volume slider will only lower the volume of the music, not the spoken narration.

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Spice Up My Slideshows!!

Are your students bored with regular lecture slideshows? Or even worse, are you trying to integrate technology by having your students create digital content, but you are stuck in having the kids create PowerPoint presentations? Time to spice up your digital content!

Alternatives to PowerPoint:

1. Promethean Flipcharts: For those of you with Promethean boards or ActivSlates, you should make use of downloading pre-made flipcharts from Promethean Planet, or better yet, make your own. Remember to incorporate interactive features so that students are interacting with the board.
2. Prezi: Unlike anything I have seen before, this site boasts that it is the "zooming editor for stunning presentations". Create your presentation online, and zoom into different parts of the lecture to create an interesting visual display.
3. Slide Rocket: This online tool allows you to upload photographs and present them in a unique way. It reminds me a bit of Cool Iris.
4. My Plick: Upload your PowerPoint file, add audio, and sync the audio to your slides to make an audio narrated slideshow. This is a good alternative for teachers teaching other teachers, or to make presentations that you want to post online for students to review content.
5. SlideShare: Upload your PP to slideshare so that you can embed them into websites, wikis, and blogs.
6. Show Beyond: Upload your slideshow and add audio narration.
7. Bubble Share: Slideshows from your pictures
8. Rock You: Add pictures, text, and music to these slideshows and embed in blogs, wikis, or webpages

Want Students to Create Digital Media?

1. One True Media: mix your photos and video to create a masterpiece
2. Photostory: Free download from Windows. Create picture slideshows, add audio narration for a better way to convey information. Students don't spend their whole computer lab type retyping their research into PP slides. Instead, they can record their voices to add their information.
3. Stupeflix: Turn your video, pictures, and text into professional looking videos.
4. MovieMaker: Capture footage from a Flip Video Camera or edit some editable footage from Discovery Streaming to create movies around a content area. Free with Windows - check your computer if you have a relatively new one. You probably have it already.
5. FreePath: Mix slides, videos, web content and more.

There are many, many more options, but these should get you started! Do you have a favorite tool for slideshows or presentations? Leave your comment to keep the ideas coming!

Photo from flickr.com - by scragz.

Prezi: A New Way To Present Information

Prezi is not your mom's presentation tool! Prezi does not just create linear presentations, but it also allows you to create a path between the information that you create, linking it in any order that you want. Zoom into the information for details, or zoom out for a global view of the presentation.

Link to a very quick prezi presentation that I made: http://prezi.com/64909/

I signed up for a free account, which does not offer me an option to make my presentations private. However, there are paid subscriptions available that has this feature. My free account comes with 100 Mb of storage. This is a great tool if you have key ideas or pictures that you want to focus in on quickly instead of having lots of text on a screen.

Pixie Quick Tip: Opening a Folder of Pictures in Pixie

You can open a folder of pictures at one time within Pixie software. As a teacher, this a great feature! You can have your students make pictures within Pixie, save them to the Student Drive in the SAME folder, and open them all at once. Once you open your pictures all at once, you can view all the pictures as a slideshow within Pixie. If you have a prejector in your room, this is a quick and easy way to share your students' work at once time. So how do you do this?


1. Open Pixie and click the "Share" button on the top toolbar. (See below)

2. Then click the "Open a folder of Pictures" button in the lower right-hand side of the screen. (See below)

3. Browse to your folder and click "Open". When you open your pictures, the blank slide will still be there. To get rid of it, right click the blank slide and choose "Close Picture". Now you can click "Start" to begin your slideshow.

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Pixie Ideas for the Classroom
Recording Sounds in Pixie
Exporting Paintings as .jpegs in Pixie

FotoViewr: Embed your Flickr photos into your blog!

FotoViewr - Create your 3D photo gallery

FotoViewr is a cool new site that I came across today that allows you to access your photos from your Flickr or SmugMug account, create a slideshow, and embed it into your blog or website. Why do I like FotoViewr?

1. You don’t need to sign up or create an account to use the site.
2. Easily access your photos by entering your username and the “tag” of the photos you wish to view.
3. Pick a “gallery” tool to showcase your photos.
4. Embed the slideshow using the code Fotoviewr provides for you. The transitions remind me of PicLens (otherwise known as Cool Iris), which is a new way to search for multimedia on the web. The effects are very similar to what I see in FotoViewr. If you can’t see the slideshow below, try viewing this blog in Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.