Last week's class ended right as a powerful rain storm hit our city. Trying to maneuver flooded streets and sidewalks while being pummeled by cold sheets of rain did not offer the ideal situation to reflect upon the class. Therefore I haven't really thought to blog (I think I'm getting this lingo down!) until now.
I had a much more successful class last week when we learned how to use PhotoStory. I've spent many hours over the past eleven years as a stay-at-home mom photographing my children. I began making scrapbooks as a new mom, and I invested in cutting tools, stickers, and special, acid-free papers to preserve my memories forever. My husband, always more technologically-aware than me, asked me why I didn't just create digital books. Initially, I scoffed at the idea of avoiding film and paper. However, by the time my third child arrived, I had begun to see the benefits of digital preservation. Snapfish and Kodak Gallery both made it easier and easier to create photo albums online using their cropping tools and various backgrounds. It still takes a great deal of time to create the albums that I want; however, it takes less time than the paper version would have (and generates much less waste).
Three or four years ago I discovered Microsoft Movie Maker software on my computer, and I tried making movies of my kids using photos, music, and video. Although it took a great deal of time for me to learn how to manipulate the different tools of the software, it was worth the investment of my time.
PhotoStory reminded me of Movie Maker. In fact, I've been trying to determine the advantages and disadvantages of the two over the past several days as I've been working on my assignment for class this week: making an educational PhotoStory. I have determined the following:
PhotoStory is free. This means I can access it anywhere I can access the Internet. This, as far as I can tell, is the biggest advantage over Movie Maker.
The biggest con for using PhotoStory is that it can only import pictures. Therefore, I had to make my title and credits using PowerPoint, save them as jpeg files, and then import them into PhotoStory. Cumbersome. In Movie Maker I could do the same thing, or I could simply use the software to make the title and credits directly.
Another advantage I see of PhotoStory is that you can "make" your own music to play in the background of your story by choosing among a few types (romantic versus serious, for example) and instruments. My version of Movie Maker does not offer that option. However, this is not a pro for me, because I like to import "real" music.
I really enjoyed making the story for class. I chose the Bronte family as my subject--I traveled to Haworth Village in England this summer, and I developed a fascination with the gifted family. I'm sure I spent way too much time on the assignment, but I just kept adding more. I would have liked to be able to chose the rate that the transitions moved between slides, and I could not figure out a way to do that.
I'm going to attempt to post the assignment to this blog when I finish this post.
Jess
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