When students demonstrate their learning through video creation, I love to see the students’ creativity in action. Students have opportunities to create images and music collaboratively with their peers while showing new knowledge gained during the unit.
Recently, our goal has been to empower students to express their creativity without putting major parameters on the video requirements. Students do not have a minimum time limit or certain amount of slides or scenes in the video. Students often struggle with the lack of limitations at times, but often, we see more creativity as they are less concerned about meeting a certain requirement (like time limit).
We focus on the message or content.
- Did you answer your essential question?
- Did you demonstrate new knowledge?
- Is it relatable to your audience?
Video Creation Tools
In turn, we look for video creation tools that provide design guidance and the ability to customize. While there are many tech tools available, it is difficult to find many that do both.
Adobe Spark has been a favorite for video creation (and other things too!). This tool helps students who need the guidance with story templates or allows students to go off script with the Start from Scratch feature. When first selecting an option, Adobe Spark provides a quick tutorial–great for students and teachers who need it!
If a student chooses the story templates, the tool provides prompts in storyboard for students to follow. For students who choose to start from scratch, the same features are shown without the prompts.
In addition, students are only given certain amount of space for text and images, further demonstrating design elements that are important when conveying a message.
Students can download the final product or Adobe will provide a shareable link for the student.
Why Students Like Adobe Spark?
Students like Adobe Spark because:
- It’s accessible from the web.
- Any device can use it (App available for iOS).
- They spend less time searching the web for images in the Creative Commons. (It provides images and icons.)
- It’s not time consuming.
What tools do you and your students prefer for video creation?
Author: Becca Munson
Becca Munson, Librarian, is a National Board Certified Teacher with over 23 years of experience in education. She is currently a school librarian at Blue Valley West High School in Overland Park, KS. Becca continues to find ways to positively impact student learning with literacy initiatives, technology integration, and building rapport with students and staff. Follow her on Twitter to view the library in action @bvwlibrary and @beccamunson .
Categories: Blog Topics, Technology
Do students have to sign up for individual accounts with Adobe Spark?