Using PhotoStory 3 in an Interdisciplinary Project

This last school year I ran into a friend, a former teacher from my school who is now one of the technology coordinators for our school district. I asked him what was new as far as readily available digital media in our district and he told me that he was going to introduce Microsoft PhotoStory 3 to my students and me.

He told me to reserve three days in the library (our computer lab), which I did, and then I started my class on the project a few days ahead of time. We had just finished a lesson that covered the vocabulary for train travel and the formation of the past tense for Spanish verbs. I presented them with the project: they were going to work with a partner and they had to tell the story of a train trip that they had taken from Madrid to another city in Spain. (With this scenario, they would include the recently learned vocabulary and the past tense of verbs.) All groups were to choose a different city for their destination. We looked at the major cities in Spain and I talked to them about some of the sites that made each city famous and unique. Their PhotoStory would begin in Madrid and from there they would narrate their travel by train to their city of destination. They had to find out and include which train station they had left from, the train schedule, price of the ticket in different classes and for one-way or round trip. They had to talk about their train ride, the amenities offered on board, and the arrival station in their selected city. After their arrival, they had to describe their hotel and how they spent three days in the city, visiting several specific places of interest that are unique to their city, not just “the beach, the mountains and the soccer stadium.” They had to visit typical Spanish restaurants which offered regional cuisine, include a recipe, talk about the food they sampled, prices of hotels, travel and tourist attractions (in Euros and dollars), and they had to include the features of the PhotoStory program (importing pictures, recording dialogue and narration, adding background music and using the “Ken Burns effect” for picture movement. Very few of them had used the program before, so it was new to almost all of us.
In all, they were working in Spanish, and using elements of social studies, math and technology. Over all it was a successful project. I also learned a lot. One of my biggest mistakes was the lack of an extension for the project or secondary activity for groups that finished ahead of schedule.
I graded their projects using a well-designed (even if I do say so myself) rubric. The students were given the rubric on the first day of the project so they could see exactly what I expected, no surprises. The final projects were fantastic!