<p>Okay, so DS is off doing a senior project for hs. When he comes back he has to present it. He’s thinking to run a bunch of his pictures while he’s speaking. The problem is nobody in my family knows anything about this stuff. I keep my pictures on kodakgallery and they recently added a “video slideshow” feature. I just made one and it took, like, 60 seconds. The problems (I think), are that you’re limited to their available music, and can only choose one song. It will automatically use as many of the pictures from your album as it can “fit” with the length of the song. (Although it’s not really necessary to show all of his pics–this is more background stuff.)</p>
<p>Can somebody help? We need something that a 3rd grader could do (should probably enlist one to help!). We do have one Mac laptop in the family, but are much more PC-friendly.</p>
<p>(And my final stupid question–for now–how are these typically shown? I know there’s some kind of projection something at the school, but how does the laptop–I’m assuming he’ll be bringing in one of ours–connect to whatever the projection thingy is? And what is the projection thingy likely to be? I did notice he received an e-mail about people bringing in Macs for their project presentations having to bring their own something cord for the projector?) (I know. It’s 2011. But I’m old.) (Really old.)</p>
<p>I’m not sure exactly what you’re asking for.</p>
<ol>
<li> If he’s going to be speaking while the slide show is on, is he going to want music behind it? Just asking.</li>
<li> Are you saying you don’t like the music from your existing program and you want to change to some other music?</li>
<li>In my experience, often they are talking about hooking a laptop to an InFocus type projector. Perhaps they mean the connector cable to the projector. If it was me, I would call and check to find out for sure what kind of cable they are telling you is necessary.</li>
<li> If your Kodakgallery program is running ok on your computer, what is it you exactly need?
Hang in there.</li>
</ol>
<p>Mac requires an adaptor to hook up to the projector. You might ask if any other students are going to make presentations. He could put his on a thumb drive and perhaps share someone’s laptop for running. At my kids former HS they did it with one computer and projector to save set up time. Each student brings their stuff on a thumb drive.
For pictures with music powerpoint it.</p>
<p>If you use the mac, and the photos are already in there, just use iPhoto. You can create a slide show pretty effortlessly and attach any song from your iTunes library as the “sound track”. </p>
<p>Then if you get the adapter that was talked about above (the school may have one available since this is a pretty common thing), have your son bring the lap top, open iPhoto and play the slide show…</p>
<p>I was going to say what churchmusicmom says re Mac user. And if a PC user, I believe even the cheaper versions of PhotoShop have a similar setup. I did one years ago on that, and I was no expert then (or now), but I added my own music. Their slideshow setup was not much different from how iPhoto works, as I recall, and quite user friendly (or should I say idiot proof).</p>
<p>Thank you all for all of the advice/input/questions. I know I wasn’t exactly clear with the original post. I can do some things but at this stage in life freak out a little when being forced to learn something new. DS is not just out of town but on the other side of the planet until four days before the presentation has to be done. I’ve found such wonderful help on CC–I thought I’d gather some info and maybe do a demo so we can hit the ground running when he gets back.</p>
<p>As I said, one of my kids does have a Mac, but he’s usually gone at school so the rest of us don’t have much experience with it. (Plus–oh yeah!–he’s out of town, with the Mac, til next week.)</p>
<p>So let’s assume this will be PC. I really did not know Powerpoint could be used for pictures and music! I will certainly do a little research there.</p>
<p>Is he going to be speaking while the slide show is going on? Good question! I really have no idea. I’ve been hesitant to ask DS much about this–he’s having an amazing trip and I know <em>loving</em> not having to think about school/project presentations/. . . . And I know I need to nut up and contact the school with some of my questions, but (1) they’ve been <em>very</em> definite about the whole student-doing-it-all-without-those-interfering-parents thing all school year and (2) I’m a little scared of the woman who’s in charge of the senior projects.</p>
<p>The “hang in there” comment was much appreciated. Sometimes I just need a little hand holding.</p>
<p>Re-reading the OP, I realize that I paid too much attention to the thread title and the mention of Kodak Gallery.</p>
<p>It appears that the S is going to be making a presentation of a project. PowerPoint is highly likely to be the best program for that. Music, I think, would be out of place, because he is going to be expected to be talking about his project.</p>
<p>Most hs students today can do Powerpoint presentations in their sleep. My S was doing them 8 or 10 years ago in hs. Also I would expect the school is totally set up for the kids to run their PPt or other slideshows.</p>
<p>If it’s anything like when my S’s sr hs class presented their senior projects, there are going to be several dozen presented at the same time - or the “top 10” or whatever. If I recall correctly, everyone in his hs presented their projects to a committee of faculty, who selected some number to present to an audience of parents/community members.</p>
<p>I think you might be re-inventing the wheel if you are trying to figure out what program to use etc. I suppose it’s possible that he would show a very few slides, with music, while he is silent and then he makes a few remarks after that’s done. But music would not be typical for this type of presentation.</p>
<p>Good info, jmmom. All these questions are helping me drill down a little more on the whole thing. At first I was thinking only about the pictures he’s taken, maybe using them as backdrop or possibly ending few minutes of the presentation. But if he’s actually going to impart information, then I guess Powerpoint is the obvious answer. And I did <em>really</em> quickly insert pictures into slides in PP yesterday–had some difficulty with the music, though, so maybe it is best to trash that whole idea.</p>
<p>This is the first year DS’s hs has had the senior project requirement. (Lucky us!) (I think it came about because the school started very late this year due to a lot of new construction and they had three weeks between APs and graduation to fill for the seniors. This really might be the only year they do it.) Anyway–there is no history of experience of older kids to fall back on, and the administration keeps hammering about it being a requirement to graduate (graduation will be two days after project presentations–we’re all nervous). I don’t think any kids or parents or even the school knows what’s required to “pass” the project. I guess that’s why my questions have been so amorphous.</p>
<p>Hearing what is typical at other schools is really helpful. I think for DS we’ve at least narrowed it down to a PP slide show, with some slides with info and some with pictures. I really like not having to think about music!</p>
<p>I’ve used Windows Movie Maker (a program that was pre-loaded on my both my 3 year old laptop and also one just recently purchased.) If he wants to use music (or not!) it’s easy to use and fairly quick. You can use any music in your music library. When I’ve wanted to use music from my iTunes library it added a couple of steps, because I needed to burn a cd then download it back into media library, but it wasn’t difficult.</p>
<p>I agree with My2Sunz…MovieMaker is super easy to use and is already on most PCs. You can add text, do fun slide transitions, and splice and fade songs. Once your product is finished, don’t forget to click “Publish” before burning so it’ll play on other computers. Good luck!</p>
<p>Besides the software products already mentioned, Animoto is a way to upload photos and select music to create a video slideshow. There’s a free version (with limited options) and then of course you can spend $ to get more features.</p>
