Sunday, April 21, 2013
Photo Story: A unique activity in the Social Studies Classroom
During my Social Studies Methods class, we were discussing the importance of implementing technology in the classroom setting to enhance a student's comprehension of the material. Our professor introduced us to photostory 3 a older program that enables students to be the historian in the classroom and document important features about a particular topic. In order to practice using this program in the class, our professor made us make our documentary. My partner and I decided to do Leonardo DaVinci. While trying to utilize the best italian accents we could muster, we were able to finish the project and perform our documentary. The program has a voice reader that enables its user to record their voice over an image. The presenter must select an image of relevance and then narrate as the picture is being moved. The program is incredibly user friendly and can reap much reward for social studies majors. I believe this program can be a very fun activity for students to engage in because it breaks the monotony of daily lectures and allows the student to be the teacher. The students can also be creative: adding different voices (ex. british professor, italian archeologist etc) and add outside persons to contribute. Overall i would recommend all social studies majors to download this program because it is a can provide a very fun experience for our students.
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John,
ReplyDeleteI think that this program can enhance a history lesson and make the topic of discussion more interesting and engaging. It's a great way to get students involved in a "hands-on" way and allows them to express themselves in a creative way. I think that you might agree than history can sometimes be, for lack of a better word, "dull." It's only natural that students will not find everything particularly interesting or exciting. However, programs like photostory 3 definitely allow students a different experience with regard to history.
John,
ReplyDeleteI also think that this program is a great way to cooperate with other teachers of various subjects. For example, coordinating a lesson on Da Vinci in history while having the same students learn about his work in an Art class. Like you said, this is a great technology to use to help get students involved and excited which I completely agree with. By trying to involve more subjects and content areas will only make this program more effective.
I haven’t taken my methods course yet, but from what you are saying it sounds very helpful. I have never heard of photostory 3 it sounds like a good thing to check out and maybe even use in the future. The documentary seems like a fun way for to engage students in a similar type of project. Definitely a great way to integrate technology in a Social Studies classroom!
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