Sometimes the simplest solution is the one that gets overlooked the most. That’s often the case when people ask me for a recommendation for making audio slideshow-style videos. I was reminded of this earlier today when one of my students asked, “can I just use the Windows app?” in response to a short video assignment that I gave my class. I said yes to his request because while there are lots of great online tools like Adobe Spark and WeVideo for making videos, there’s also a good one built right into Windows 10.
Microsoft Photos includes a video creation tool for making short audio slideshow-style videos. You’ll find this by just opening the native photos app in Windows 10. Within the editor there are tools for adding animated effects to still images, insert your existing video clips into a video project, and tools for adding audio to your video. There’s also a great option to search for Creative Commons licensed images and insert them directly into your video project. The best part of that feature is that attribution information is automatically added onto the images you choose through the built-in search tool.
In the following video I provide a demonstration of how to create a video in Microsoft Photos in Windows 10.
Applications for Education
Today, I gave some of my students the assignment to make short videos about different types of computer and network security threats and how to prevent them. These are going to be short (30-60 second) videos that serve as public service announcements. My student who chose to use the Microsoft Photos video editor is recording a little voice over that will sync to the images.
Years ago I had a group of students make audio slideshow-style videos as biographies of past Presidents of the United States. And I’ve worked with a lot of elementary school teachers over the years who had students make audio slideshow videos about animals, habitats, their families, and many other topics. Overall, these videos tend to be summaries of what students have learned in class and through short research tasks. They’re often more exciting assignments for students and more fun to review than a five paragraph essay.
