Slideshows

What: More than traditional slideshows!

Ease of use: Many students will already be familiar with tools like these, and to the concept of creating a slideshow. Some of the more complex features these tools can sport may require a slightly more advanced user, but the basics are mastered quickly.

Writing application:

The opportunities for writing using a slide show tool are numerous. Text with pictures is a basic story building concept, and the tools are often very familiar to students, particularly if they have used them for assignments at school. When building stories with them however, the tools take on a new life for students.

You'll find that introducing students at late primary, early secondary level to story building using slideshows offers other benefits. There's nothing like creative play to encourage students to explore the myriad of features in an online tool! Once they have mastered them to build a story, their next class presentations will also be more polished and featured.

One feature that is definitely worth raising with students as they write, is which method they will use to progress the slides in their presentation, and how that will impact on the meaning and experience of the story.

Suited: Late primary and secondary students should manage fine with this application.

Speaking out: You'll find this type of story tool is particularly good when mixed with the spoken word. Encouraging students to script a vocal element to their story that they can speak during the presentation is one more way of creating an engaging story.

Which to chose?:

Though the number of web based tools for this type of storytelling are numerous and steadily improving in terms of usability and features, there are three that I think are particularly good:

• Sliderocket
• Empressr
• Slideroll
• 280Slides

A late addition to this is list Vuvox. More suited to image slideshows, Vuvox is a little different. It allows you to create custom collages, zoom in, import video and a host of other tricks. With new features on their way, this is one tool worth watching.

• Vuvox

UPDATE: Prezi is a newly released presentation tool with a difference. Fluid big picture presentations that more easily enable you to zoom in and out, back and forth during your presentation. Great fun, give it a try before you commit to using any of the others on this page!

Of course, you could use a Microsoft product for this type of storytelling, and the latest incarnations of PowerPoint are powerful, and very suitable for story building. However, you may have to buy this software, and then save a file somewhere on your computer, and if you want to edit it later ... store the file, or email it.

With the applications suggested above, you store your files online, they are fast to master and best of all ... free forever. Not only that, but these tools foster communities of people using these types of tools, and they are updated and improved constantly.

Teaching with an existing text:

One approach to teaching with an existing class text is to ask students to put together a collection of images and web resources that capture the central themes of the novel or poem they are working on. Ask them to then use a slide show to explore these images and explains them to an audience.

You might also consider exploring character with this type of tool - create a collection of images with annotations that explore a characters past, or their involvement in the novel.