Adobe Spark

Another post about my TCEA17 experience.

I have written about the Adobe Spark apps before, this time last year when I was posting my TCEA thoughts,  but they were another big topic this year at TCEA. So I thought I would mention them again. It never hurts to keep these great tools in the spotlight.

Spark is broken down into three sections Post, Page, and Video. All three programs can be accessed from https://spark.adobe.com/ or through their respective iOS apps.

• Spark Post
• Spark Page
• Spark Video

Handout from a Workshop

Adobe's Edu Spark Guide

The biggest thing I heard out of sessions talking about Spark is the fact students under the age of 13 cannot create their own free Adobe account. For students with Google accounts, logging in with Google is very simple. But for students under 13, the teacher will need to create some kind of monitored account for the students to use. 

Here is a video on a very easy way for teachers to create those accounts using the Plus Addressing technique.

Spark Post is the social graphics creation program. Great tool, easy to use, and flexible are some words I have heard people use to describe Post. The basics; pick a photograph, add text, and apply your design. 

example - 

Spark Page is their webpage creation tool. But more than just your average webpage. Pages can really tell a story with graphics, video, and text in a magazine-style format. 

Here is a good example. 

https://spark.adobe.com/gallery/education/example/the-revolution-that-started-it-all-/ 

Spark Video is probably my favorite tool with my relationship with digital storytelling. Users can add their own photos and videos, use the provided icons, add soundtracks, cinematic motion, and best of all, record their own voice.  

Here's an example.

https://spark.adobe.com/gallery/education/example/days-creek-carnival-athena/

Give these three tools a try and then try them with students. If you have iPads, the apps are very easy to use. If you have Chromebooks or other computers, the webpage will be the way to access Adobe Spark.

Lubbock ISD Summer Leadership Institute

Had a great time presenting at our district's Summer Leadership Institute. Here are links to my presentations.

Sharing is Caring... For Leaders - 
I shared out resources for our campus and district leaders to help improve their online communication with their stakeholders (students, parents, community). I shared Blogger, Google Sites, Adobe Spark, Microsoft Sway, Twitter, Canva, the Microsoft Selfie App, Vocoroo, Tricider, and Watchkin. Check out the slide deck for links and training resources.

10 Imperatives for Technology in the Classroom -  - Outline
This was a little bit different session that just sharing resource after resource. It was more of theory behind using technology and changing your mindset of what has traditionally been done in the classroom.
I did share some resources on Augmented Reality and dropped a lot of big names in #EdTech.

TCEA 16 - Adobe part 2

Amazing Adobe App Smash
Jessica Mozisek and Rachelle Wooten, Fort Bend ISD had a wonderful presentation about the apps I mentioned in the last post. Specifically, they covered ways to use Adobe Capture, Draw, Slate, and Voice in the classroom.

Here is the link to their presentation with many great ideas. http://goo.gl/YoV1af

They had some really good best practices. The following comes direct from their presentation, but it bears repeating because it is very good advice and I give them all the credit.

• Limiting students to only one app is asking them to miss out on opportunities to create something innovative. Do suggest apps for them to use.
• Give students a choice for their final product. For example, allow them to choose which final presentation tool they will use. (Voice vs. Slate in our case).
• Take the time to allow your students to get comfortable with the apps. Demonstrate how the apps function and feed in a short amount of time to let them play.
• Monitor students to make sure they haven’t chosen an app that overwhelms them to the point of not finishing; however, a bit of struggle means they are learning.

Very good advice for any classroom projects that use technology. Make sure to check out their presentation.

TCEA 16 - Adobe

Ok, I realize I haven't been on in a while. Insert work thing, personal thing, life thing excuse here. 

So starting today, I wanted to start a series of posts from the learning I picked up at TCEA 16 this year. TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) is a member-based organization supporting the use of technology in education. Their annual convention is usually around the first of February. If you have any interest in educational technology I highly recommend going to this conference. Here is the link to next year's convention. http://www.tceaconvention.org/2017/

So, 1st in the post a bit about the Adobe apps I learned more about. I had heard of and tinkered with many of these, but some were new. Here is a quick run down.

Adobe Clip -  easy video editor from your pictures and videos; can add sound from stock soundtracks or your own music

Adobe Capture - take a picture and capture the color theme of the moment to use in other projects

Adobe Draw - draw vector illustrations

Adobe Post - add text to your photos for easy to create social graphics

Adobe Slate - create parallax scrolling websites easily with this app; great for website, electronic newsletters, and invitations; easy to create and share

Adobe Voice - create animated videos from your pictures or stock icons, talk to record your story, and share with the world.

Out of all of these, I probably like Voice the best with Slate and Post coming in close 2nd/3rd. I am still big on digital storytelling as a means for students to create in the classroom. Voice is the project for that. Slate is easy to use and I can see it as a way schools could send out information and students could create presentations. Post is just a fun way to add text to my photographs before I post on social media. Plus, saving to the camera roll on most of these apps is a big plus in my book. I can decide what to do with the project instead of it just sitting on Adobe's server.

The drawback... you do have to have an Adobe ID login. You can use a Facebook account, but that may not help most students. The two presenters I went to handled this in three different ways. 

1. Have each student create their own account. Not particularly handy if they are under 13.
2. The teacher created an account using their email address and logged in to the classroom iPads with one account. The problem there is the lack of security as each project from the iPads shows up on every iPad. 
3. Teacher's created an id based off of their account. If you have a Gmail account you can add a plus sign and number in your email address, create the adobe account, and all email correspondence goes back to the original email address. For example, myaccount@gmail.com is my original email address. For my Adobe ID, I could create myaccount+1@gmail.com, myaccount+2@gmail.com...and so on and use those IDs on each individual iPad. If you want to know more about this watch this video (they use text after the plus sign, but you can use numbers if you want).

The other drawback... The images didn't seem to be filtered. Or at least some images got through that I would have though our district filter would have blocked. So you might use the apps with a word of caution. Perhaps using them personally before turning student's loose with them so you know what to expect.

So go ahead and try these Adobe iOS apps. I think you will like them.