I have been a participant of Marcus Ragus’ special interest group called Digital Coaching Aids (DCAs) which has been online since April. It has been a rewarding and enjoyable course where the group has been introduced to a multitude of facets involving the use of Microsoft PowerPoint as a digital teaching aid. In addition to discovering some of the intriguing capabilities of PowerPoint, we have also had the added benefit of becoming acquainted with some other gems – and one that I would like to share with you all is a product called Microsoft Photo Story .

It was Mark Chaston, a rather talented participant of Marcus’ SIG, who introduced us to this fantastic piece of software. Fantastic - because it is so quick and easy to use. And might I add, that from personal experience, I have found that the finished product is usually one of high quality with the added bonus of requiring very little effort on your part, the producer.

A photo story is usually a combination of digital images using photos or scanned material and sound (narration and background music, if you wish). The finished product is what I would call a pseudo video.

Photo Story can be successfully used as part of any ESL program. For example, in my case, I teach adult migrants English  and one of my classes consists of students who have limited or no English together with little or no literacy in their first language. Some of them had never held a pen or pencil before taking their first step into formal education with the Adult Migrant English Program (which is funded by DIMIA) here at the Canberra Institute of Technology. 

Much of the commercially available CALL material is too dense and complex for these students to use. Because of this I needed something less complicated with lots of visuals and limited text. I have found that for this particular group of students a combination of PowerPoint shows, Photo Story and Smartboard activities, blended with conventional approaches to language and literacy teaching/learning, ensures a manageable and interesting combination of approaches at this emergent level.

The PowerPoint shows consist of a mixture of digital images, audio and some interactivity, while Photo Story is ideal for listening activities and a myriad of other activities listed below. The students are able to navigate their way through the PowerPoint shows on individual computers, while working at their own pace. Then they listen to and watch a Photo Story associated with the PowerPoint show they have just been working with.  In ESL classes Photo Story can be used for recounts, instructions, information, summaries, acquisition of new vocabulary, as well as listening, spelling, and pronunciation activities etc… Students can record parts of the story and listen to each other. Monologues or dialogues (or both) can also be created. Text can also be added to the images before importing using a program such as Adobe.

While the students are using Photo Story during sessions in the computer laboratory, I often hear them repeat key words or phrases or try to write some of them. Then when back in the classroom we continue with follow–up activities where the students engage in as much English chatter, as is possible at this level, about the Photo Story and the Powerpoints they have just encountered. As an additional bonus, if one of the Smartboards is free, we also use its interactive capabilities using a program called Smart Notebook.                                                                                           
            
I recommend Photo Story because of the ease with which each 'video' can be created. Interestingly enough the final size of the file is small in comparison to a PowerPoint file with the same number of images. The stories can be saved on CDs or USBs , or alternatively they can be uploaded onto WebCT. 

Photo Story is fun, different and ‘easy as ABC’.