So this week I got round to using Adobe Spark Video, I’ll be honest I wasn’t disappointed with the result! Adobe have been making iPad-friendly apps for years and there were three apps aimed to make visual content creation easy and accessible for all: Adobe Voice was for animated videos or presentations, Adobe Slate was more for text-driven projects, and Adobe Post was for social graphics.

Recently the company is brought all three of those apps under a new name, and also introducing a web version of the software. The new Adobe Spark suite includes Adobe Spark Video (formerly Voice), Adobe Spark Page (formerly Slate), and Adobe Spark Post (which was just Post before).

The new update of Spark is fantastic! It still allows users to make social graphics, web stories, and animated videos without requiring a lot of digital-media expertise. However, as Adobe have now added a browser-based web app, where you can open up Spark and continue editing the projects you started on mobile, you can continue your work across devices as it dependant on emails and is therefore cloud based.

img_6673

Class Ideas:

English/Literacy based:

  • Create a verbal paragraph, a great Speech and Language activity as well as handy for children that struggle to get their ideas down. One slide to be what they can see, next one what they can hear and so on.
  • Create a short story, using pictures to tell your story and recorded voice over the top.
  • Flip the idea, pictures available to children then in any order they create their own story and record their sentences.
  • Choral poetry, part of the curriculum and usually hard to record. This will give pupils a physical stimulus too.
  • Guided reading retelling the story using each page as a plot point.
  • Non-chronological reports- each slide is a feature.

Maths based:

  • Showing development of an area.
  • Explaining a concept, method or idea.
  • Reasoning problems, children could record themselves first asking a question and then demonstrating the method.

Elsewhere:

  • Topic and Science- explaining concepts, science experiments or end of unit learning.
  • Biographies of famous people in science and history (part of the curriculum for children to know about this).
  • Modern Foreign Languages- explaining concepts, ideas etc.

I could go on and on, continuing to repeat myself but essentially Adobe Spark Video is a way of using the core principles of a presentation, explaining an idea, but in a very simple, and beautiful way. The simplicity of the images, transitions and export functions mean that within a lesson my children are confident with the app and could use it in a plethora of subjects to explain ideas, methods or for me to use as an assessment tool.

img_6671

Practicalities:

The only things that come to mind for me are that as it is cloud-based you’ll need a decent Wi-Fi infrastructure- don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t need to be next generation but otherwise 1-to-1 with iPads you may struggle. Also, as it is a cloud-based app you will need to add an email address when you log in, your choice of class email address, school or personal. Keep in mind if you use one email address for the whole school it will fill up quickly- and you may struggle to find past projects. That being said you have the option to share to Facebook, Twitter, email, message Clipboard or even save to Camera Roll.  At present there isn’t an Android version of these apps, but that could change soon.  The apps are free at the moment, but Adobe has said there will be paid versions of this in the future that offer more features and more granular control.

img_6665

Final Thoughts:

Adobe Spark Video is a terrific app, that is easily accessible and has a variety of uses in the classroom. I’ve included a video that my class made for Safer Internet Day 2017 which demonstrates the range of themes and features that users are allowed to do. The children were in pairs and created short advice videos about Online Safety. This is a quick and easy example that was then pieced together with iMovie but it demonstrates how effective the app can be. Also, the introduction of a cloud-based systems is fantastic and it allows learners to continue their work and embed it elsewhere with ease.

For more information regarding Online Safety, Curriculum and Digital Literacy:

NAACE: (@naace) https://www.naace.co.uk/

For innovative ideas in Literacy:

Rob Smith, (@redgierob and @literacyshed) http://www.literacyshed.com/

For more Adobe Spark, App and EdTech ideas:

Mark Anderson (@ICTEvangelist) https://ictevangelist.com/

Martin Bailey (@Animate2Educate) http://www.animate2educate.co.uk/website

Lee Parkinson (@ICT_MrP) http://mrparkinsonict.blogspot.co.uk/

Below is a video that my class made for Safer Internet Day 2017,  we made it using  Adobe Spark and pieced the video together using iMovie. Both Y5 and I hope you like it and it’s of use to you when making your own Adobe Spark Videos.

Children’s advice about Online Safety from Old Hall Primary on Vimeo.

Thanks for Reading,

Adam Chase

@_geekyteacher