Lessons+From+The+Blender

Putting Your Lessons in the Blender Greetings Fellow Educators,

Do you use PowerPoint presentations in your classroom? Do you ever do the same lesson over and over again to the point of distraction? Have you ever faced the challenge of adequately bringing a student back up to speed after an absence? Have you ever wanted to make your lessons available on a broader scale in regards to both time and place of delivery? Are you ever looking for new ways to spice up your delivery and change up the pace? Have you ever felt the anxiety of dealing with the break in continuity when you need to take time off?

If you answered yes to at least the first question, then you may be interested in what’s on offer in this space. What we have here is a vodcast tutorial on how to blend Microsoft PowerPoint into Microsoft Photo Story 3. The reason for wanting to do this can be summed up in one word; autopilot. By importing your PowerPoint lessons into Photo Story, you can create a one-touch lesson presentation that can be delivered in a wide variety of ways.

The tutorial, should you choose to watch it, was created using the approach being touted here; namely by combining PowerPoint and Photo Story. First the slides were created to produce the visual element, and then the voicing and transitioning were added in Photo Story. Finally, Photo Story compresses the file into a video which can be distributed in so many ways that it’s really only limited by your imagination.

In addition to the video tutorial below, there are also links placed under it on this page to various supporting elements for developing lessons using this approach. You’ll find a link to the Microsoft download page for Photo Story 3, a link to Jing.com (where you’ll find some amazing free software for a screen capture utility), and a downloadable storyboarding template in PDF format.

So with that, I’ll leave you to decide if this could work for you or not. If you just so happen to be inclined to venture down the path, I wish you the best of luck with it. If there’s any questions that I may be able answer for you, I’ll be glad to try. You can leave a post in the discussion area here, or if you prefer you can reach me at my work e-mail; mmccabe@bptech.org

I hope you find value in the presentation!

Mike McCabe

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You can download Microsoft Photostory 3 here: [|MS Photostory 3]

You can download Jing screencapture software here: [|Jing]

You can download a storyboarding template here: [|StoryBoarding PDF]

This professional development activity addresses all of the ISTE NETS and Performance Indicators for Teachers: [|NETS PDF]