What is PhotoStory3? - PhotoStory3 allows you to make a movie using photos and adding text, music and narration.

What is digital storytelling? -

Perhaps best summed up by the image from The Center for Digital Storytelling, digital storytelling tells a story. It can be a personal story as in creative writing or it can be a visual presentation on a school topic; in our case it will be a story concerning issues we have encountered in our reading of Grapes of Wrath.

Microsoft Photo Story 3 - check out the lower right hand corner - A Moment in Time
Wow your teachers - Microsoft sample - in the search box, enter Wow your teachers - view Quebec title
mishaps and misadventures - Australian - ACMI - example
The Outdoor Classroom - our own story at WPHS
The Strength of Family - Ms. Young's sample project

Since there is so much material available on our subject matter, finding resources will be exciting. Links to resources will be listed below.

Our first task is to decide what story we will be telling...

The Federal Weedpatch camps

Step 2: Decide on your 'dramatic question'.

This is the question that you want to answer concerning your topic. Think about the questions we have asked in Socratic seminars - the Essential Questions.
Simply making a point doesn’t necessarily keep people’s attention throughout a story. In a romance, will the girl get the guy? In an adventure, will the hero reach the goal? In a crime or murder mystery, who did it? When any of these questions are answered, the story is over.
A dramatic question makes you think. An example from storycenter.org shows how the dramatic question is posed and resolved in the first and closing lines.The student states at the beginning that she didn’t understand friendship. At the end she leaves us with a rather open-ended statement, "I couldn’t believe she knew my middle name." It does not take much to interpret the dramatic question, "What is the meaning of friendship?"
If the question is about how the girl gets the guy, our immediate assumption is that either the guy, or someone the guy knows, doesn’t want the guy to be gotten. What if the girl thinks she wants one guy, but she really wants the guy who is trying to stop her from getting the original guy? What if she decides to chuck the whole thing and become a nun? A good author will make you think the central dramatic question was "Will the girl get the guy?" when it really was "Will the girl find happiness?".

Still confused? - see if this link helps: Essential Questions

adapted from: http://www.storycenter.org/memvoice/pages/tutorial_1b.html

Step 3: Decide your point of view.
Who will be telling your story? Will your voice be one of the characters in the book or someone that has lived during that time, or will you be using the voice of an 'expert' on the subject? Which will have the most emotional impact? - Think back to our writing on the photograph - will you simply be describing or will you use what you know to tell the story?

You may find this site on point of view helpful.

Step 4: Begin your Photo Story!
We will be working with PhotoStory3; there is an icon on your desktop. The program is very easy to use and will allow you to incorporate your images, your titles, your narration, your music, and your transitions - all in one program!

Technical information: We have been granted a group account allowing each of your pods members access to all your work. You will begin by researching your topic and creating a rough draft of your text. For your next step, you will begin searching for images that reflect your topic. As you find information, save that information in folders. You will probably have three different types of information: images, facts, sound. You should probably create a folder for each of those sources.

IMPORTANT! - While you are searching for your images, you should have a WORD document open where you will identify your materials and copy and paste the SOURCE of your images, research, and sound. You MUST have each piece cited in your photo story. You will be creating a Works Cited page at the end; the same is true for any research materials/facts. Music is another issue. Because of stringent copyright laws, you will be only be using free clips with no copyrights (sites below); you may also use the PhotoStory3 music program.

A very helpful tool for creating an outline to begin the rough draft of your text is found below. It is an interactive program that will allow you to map out your essay! Try it! http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/essaymap/

Check out this site for questions concerning copyright issues! - http://www.cyberbee.com/cb_copyright.swf

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Steinbeck/grapes.html

http://www.filmsite.org/grap.html

The Texas Dust Bowl in Historical Perspective: What Happened and Could It Happen Again?
http://freespace.virgin.net/john.cletheroe/usa_can/usa/dbowl2.htm