Happy Trimester 2! As classes enter trimester 2 and return in January, teachers often think about ways to refresh their classrooms by reviewing and/or introducing procedures, refreshing their expectations, even considering new ways to engage students. Teachers and students become more and more comfortable with the learning management systems, it might be time to introduce some new ideas to Seesaw to “spruce”up/ refresh the classroom. Below are some ideas to get your started using Adobe Spark with Seesaw.
App Smash: Seesaw & Adobe Spark
Introducing new apps for projects, demonstration of learning or just a new place to interact with content can be a great way to refresh your virtual classroom. One idea is to bring in Adobe Spark for projects or demonstration of learning. Adobe spark is an open-ended creation app where students can make short videos, infographics, picture collages and so much more.
Emily Melograna used Adobe Spark with her students in Social Studies to demonstrate their understanding of the Earliest Washingtonians. She asked her students to answer three important questions in their project, but then they had free choice on how they wanted to present the information using Adobe Spark. Students then posted their Adobe Spark project links to Seesaw. Then, Emily posted them to her Seesaw Class blog for the whole class to enjoy. This not only opened a new way of demonstrating learning while still using Seesaw, it also allowed the students to have an audience on the blog to present to.
Ideas for getting started:
- Introduce students to Adobe Spark – Live session or Video tutorial (Loom)
- Give Live tinker time: to explore and begin to create projects with the teacher and guest support (Instructional Coach, Tosa, etc.)
- Students post a share link from their project onto their Seesaw journal
- Publish to Seesaw Blog
- Peers view and comment on project
Students have access to Adobe Spark through Clever. If prompted for username or password, students should use their Office 365 credentials and select School/Work account. (Example username: birdchr29@issaquah.wednet.edu and password: student ID). From there students can choose templates for photo journals, slide shows, picture collages and much more. Adobe not only has great templates students can use but a large library of free photos and graphics they can use to create their projects.
Once students have finished their projects, they can select to publish their work and copy a share link to be shared on Seesaw. Open project>Select Share>Select Publish>Select Link and copy generated link to move into Seesaw post.
Teachers can then choose to share their links on the class Seesaw blog for other students to view and comment on peer’s work. Great for helping students find an audience in this virtual/remote world!
More Ideas on Adobe Spark
The possibilities are endless when using Adobe Spark for demonstration of student understanding. Below are a few ways you could use Adobe Spark in different subject areas.
- Create a movie poster (reading)
- Redesigned cover for a book (reading)
- Create a comic strip (writing)
- Design a Concept Poster (math, reading, writing)
- Create a tutorial video (math)
- Social Media Page (fake) for a character (reading)
This list of possibilities are endless! The beauty of Adobe Spark is giving students the ability to create unique projects to show their thinking that could be done with a set of guidelines OR left open-ended for student choice. Because it is so easy to grab a share link, it make it a great program to integrate with Seesaw and Seesaw Blogs. Set a “Spark” in your Seesaw Classroom this January!
BITS AND PIECES 