Flixtime is very simple to use.  Create new video, name your video, add a description, upload your photos/video, choose your title image, add music (it automatically adjusts the time to the length of your images/video) add text, save and render.

What Flixtime offers, that PhotoPeach doesn’t, is that you can add voice over too. The tool button to do that does not appear until you have saved and rendered your video though.

You can either upload your recorded voice or you can record on the spot. I like that feature too.

A few photos, no captions, a bit of music, no voice over (but I will get my son to make his own video about this) and a few minutes (it was very quick), here’s my finished product. All the transitions are done automatically by flixtime.

Daniel H Pink, in his book, A Whole New Mind says:

We are our stories.  We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves.  That has always been true. But personal narrative has become more prevalent, and perhaps more urgent, in a time of abundance, when many of us are freer to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose.

Digital storytelling’s place in the classroom has cemented itself as one of the most powerful mediums available to our students.  It’s a chance for their stories to be created, to be heard, and to be shared.

I really loved Photostory3 in the classroom as software for digital storytelling.  It offers students and teachers the chance to create simple, effective digital stories, taking care of the “bells and whistles” that students tend to get carried away with – but still left that option open if it was needed (challenge for those digital natives in your classroom).  I wish someone would create a Photostory3 for the Mac! (Hint, hint someone!!) My prayers have kinda been answered with PhotoPeach.  I wrote about using PhotoPeach a while back, and I’m still liking it.  There’s a couple of missing features that would really put PhotoPeach on a par with Photostory3 – the ability to rotate photos and to add audio!  But it’s still pretty effective if I do say so myself.  I really like the feature of adding music from a general offering of styles – one less thing to think about if you are beginning digital storytelling in the classroom.  Being able to choose music without worrying about copyright is a bonus.

Here’s Day 1 of a recent trip to Cambodia, to show just how simple yet effective you can tell a story digitally. My general rule of thumb is ……..  if it takes me about 15 minutes, chances are that Grade 5 students can make theirs in two 45 minute sessions plus planning/storyboard time!

Not bad, for another “freebie” tool on the web!

Features

It’s FREE, and super easy to use. (Grade 5′s will find this a breeze).  You have the option of choosing from the generous list of free audio for background sound or you can upload your own music.  You can’t record voice audio each photo but you could record your voice using GarageBand (macs) or Audacity (PCs) as you have your PhotoPeach story playing (so you get the timing right).  You would have to forfeit the background music option though.  The sharing options include Facebook, Twitter (url), html code (for embedding in blogs) MySpace, email or Copy Link.  Images can be added from your computer, Picasa, Facebook or Flickr.

I really like the editing feature – you can edit captions, add photos, swap the order of photos etc even after you’ve published it – when you’re working with students I think this option is a must – since it provides an opportunity for students to evaluate, reflect and then make improvements (if necessary) to their work without having to start again.

Use in the Classroom
I will introduce PhotoPeach to my class at the beginning of the year (August 2009) using it as a way for them to introduce themselves to me and the rest of class.  I’d have them take photos to represent themselves, (no identifying photos, since we will be sharing the stories on our blogs).

It’s a presentation tool to be added to our classroom “toolbox” for digital storytelling.

Steps to Setting Up a Story

At moment due to a problem with permissions, flickr is not available (not sure if that’s a problem with me or with PhotoPeach).  I used the photos in my facebook album first.

I found the adding the captions easy at first, but when I wanted no caption I wasn’t sure if missing a line would result in no caption. (Someone else can try this). It was much easier to add/edit captions after I was finished.

Using the editing option I was able to add in more photos (from my computer this time) adjust the speed (slower) and edit the captions.