Photo Story is available as a free download from the Microsoft website. According to the software maker, “Photo Story helps you to create exciting video stories by adding panning and zooming effects to your pictures. Use Photo Story to record narration for your pictures, and add titles and background musicto your story. You can also share your story in a variety of ways.
Overall, I was a little underwhelmed by Photo Story. The process is fairly straightforward, with options to edit photos, set panning and zooming on photos, add effects, add music and record narration. Recording narration was easy,but editing and creative choices seem a little limited. I used my Samson CO1U microphone. There were a few issues in getting the program to recognize my microphone, but after a few tweaks (!) it worked.
The output of Photo Story leaves us trapped inside Microsoft-land – WMV. Luckily there is a freeware application that can help us – Jodix
Jodix can easily convert a variety of different media formats into an iPod compatible format. For podcasters working with software limited to exporting to Windows Media formats, this is an essential piece of software.
http://www.intelligenic.com/kidcast/shows/032307_kidcast.m4a
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4 users responded in this post
Thanks Dan. I’ve sent this to some of my Mac friends who are now in Windows schools and trying to figure out how they can still do podcasting when they are surrounded by windows boxes. They will be so pleased.
The windows crowd are over the moon with photo story so they will just love jodix.
Something else I thought you may be interested in is that we have just completed our first challenge around Australia as a trial between my school in Epsom Victoria and Orange Grove Primary in Western Australia. The challenge was first to run 100kms. Both schools used the nike sensors and uploaded to the nike site. We won the challenge and the kids are ecstatic and still want to run with the sensor. We have the cross country coming up and are using the nike sensor and ipod nano. So this is just the beginning of further challenges now possible between schools without the need for buses.
Cheers from Jenny Ashby in Aus
Oh I forgot to say the losing school had to create a congratualtory podcast for the other school. So we are looking forward to the podcast from Orange Grove Primary School.
Hey Dan,
Our tech department here at Carrollton-Farmers Branch (which you’ve visited, I believe) is very gung-ho about Photo Story and Jodix and it looks great to me!
It is especially appealing to me because of the nature of my podcast…as an art teacher, I talk about lessons where visuals would be very helpful. So, I thought that Photo Story would be wonderful! However, after I learned that the podcasts would only be compatable with video iPods, I became immediately less than enthusiastic.
First of all, am I mistaken about this? Can video iPods and other mp3 players alike download and listen to the podcast or would I need to publish separate feeds?
Thanks!
Brian Rhea
http://middleschoolartteacher.blogspot.com
Hey Brian,
The iPod video format can be played on any computer that supports iTunes – Windows or Mac.
Also, this format can be played on other video enabled media players. The zune, for example, will play
* .WMV
* MPEG-4
* H.264
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