I chose PhotoPeach.com as the emergent tool that I will be using for my RILS implementation because
- It is FREE
- Easy to Upload your digital photos
- Easy to navigate, Just Click, Drag & Drag
- Easy to digital stories by creating slideshows with photos, music and captions for young or intermediate children
- It’s fun for teachers and other adults too
- There are lots of examples of how to use PhotoPeach in the classroom or home environment
Although this a free site, which is great, I signed up for the Educator Account to test out its administrative feature that the site highlights as a perk for teachers. The first month is a free trial also so that was a plus for trying out a new emergent tool and all the functions a teacher can use to help students create great shows in the classroom or with parents for building a home/school connection with technology!
The Educator’s Experience
I easily uploaded 100 of my photos from my drive quickly with no problems! All pictures displayed quickly. I created my class roster and made usernames and passwords for all participant, including a student version for me. I thought this would be an effective way to view possible learning curves and situations through my students eyes by being the learner and not the educator during completing my slideshow.
As the educator I was able to easily set the tone for virtually managing my classroom with this tool easy. Privacy settings are important for assuring student’s interact with content that is safe and appropriate. I was able to add settings that help make sure students did not share content without my ability to have access to the information. Also all slideshow cannot be deleted without administrative approval, which is easy to do.
The Student’s Experience
As a learner, I used a student account to create my slideshow under my Educator account so that I can understand how to best manage both through practice. I logged out as educator and had to login with my student account I created. I did notice certain functions where not available for students. In order to access them I had to jump back into my educator account. At first this became confusing because I couldn’t figure out how to share my slideshow, but soon realized those features I disabled for my student accounts! This was a good learning experience from both perspectives.
The Downside to My Learning Experience as an educator and a student using a new tool
I did run into two problems when making a slideshow.
1. As I added captions and spent a lot of time on my clips, for some reason I lost all the edits I made due to a save error on the site. I couldn’t retrieve any of it, so I had to start over. This was frustrating, and I could see how this could be frustrating for children.
Solution during implementation: I suggest writing a draft of captions first before typing straight onto the interface so they have hard copy of their writing captions.
2. After I added all my photos with ease, I noticed some clips were not cropped correctly. The PhotoPeach site did not have any editing effects to help with this! I had to delete some of my favorite picture because they were upside down when the slide show displayed.
Solution during implementation: Make sure pictures are edited correctly before placing into PhotoPeach. Use another photo tool to fix pictures the way participants like.
Other then those two disadvantages using PhotoPeach was fun, easy and user friendly to use for creating digital stories in grades K- 12+.
I learned
- How to edit captions and add music to the entire slideshow
- How to create quizzes in PhotoPeach
- How to import all pictures easy at one time
- How to draw and drop pictures where I want them to display in the show
- How to Create as a Student
- How to administrate and manage Emergent Technology for a classroom like an Educator
Here is a personal slide show that shares a meaningful story with my learners about Celebrating a Day at Chicago’s Navy Pier for my daughters 5th birthday.
Enjoy my Story! Click Below to View
A Beautiful Day to Celebrate in Chicago on PhotoPeach
Reflective Connection's with Christina Wilson 