Yesterday, I took a quickie techie type class at the college. I often teach web-based classes, and even my traditional classes use the web extensively. In fact, unless students actually write in my classroom (and they do), I do not accept hardcopy papers at all any more. I receive students’ final papers through a class web site, I grade them using some simple Word macros I created, and I send them back to students through the same site. No fuss, no muss, no lugging around papers and pen for moi any more!

I also try to use the web to post digital media to assist students, and so that was part of yesterday’s class, which included a brief but amazing introduction to a free software called Photo Story3. This software allows you to use still images (.jpg files) to create your own videos. You can zoom in and out of the images, create various other affects with them, add audio, add text, and even include music.

I decided to write about this here on my crafting blog because, as well as seeing a ton of school-related potential like creating grammar how-to videos, I can see how crafters can use this tool to create how-to crafting videos. If you have spent time taking pictures of your crafting, you can now take those images, upload them into Photo Story3, and create an actual video out of them. After spending some time creating real videos for my metal clay book, I can testify to the fact that they are very time intensive. Even just creating a few minutes of video can take hours of effort, and you really need to have the equipment to handle some editing as well if you want anything of quality produced.

I’m not saying that this software can replace an real moving video; however, for those who have wanted to do something like a video but felt intimidated by the amount of time, special knowledge, and equipment required, this offers a DIY option on the cheap.