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Adobe Spark for Educators

2/18/2020

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Discover.

Adobe Spark provides free resources that allow teachers and students to easily create and share their work digitally. One tool that I particularly like is the Adobe Spark Video app. It is simple to use and a great tool for narrating a captivating story, presenting a report, explaining a concept, or telling a personal story. Students can choose their own images to add to their videos or select from the thousands that are available. There are also options to add text, music, animation and more. Discover how you might use it in your classroom by watching the short videos below:

Learn.

Adobe offers many free courses for educators. One of these is called Digital Storytelling with Your Class. The program is described as follows:

"This free online course is aimed at all educators looking to get started using digital storytelling to engage students, and learning to tell compelling digital stories with Adobe Spark. The course is self-paced, so you can learn at your own speed, and should take no longer than 3 hours to complete.

No prior knowledge of Adobe tools is required to take part.

Throughout this fun and easy course, you’ll explore:
  • Short video tutorials by expert educators which give you the technical skills required to create your own digital stories with Adobe tools
  • Information on using digital storytelling in your curriculum to produce exciting outcomes for you and your students
  • Basic principles of digital storytelling
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Successful graduates of this course will receive an Adobe digital badge and a certificate accrediting 3 hours of professional development."
Free Digital Storytelling Course

Do.

Looking for inspiration? Check out sample student work and teaching resources.
Questions? Read the Adobe Spark Educator's Guide.
Sample Student Work (scroll to yellow section)
Curriculum - Teaching Resources
Adobe Spark Educator's Guide
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Featured iPad Tool: Pages

1/9/2020

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Discover.

"Bring words and ideas to life with Pages — a powerful word processing app that lets you create stunning documents and so much more. Intuitive tools in Pages make it easy to customize fonts and add images, movies, audio clips, shapes, and your own drawings to any document. Create reports, newsletters, posters, and more using a variety of beautiful templates. You can even make interactive books that readers can view on virtually any device." -- Apple

Discover more in the quick tutorial below:

Learn.

Learn how to use Pages by reading Pages for iPad. You can access and download the text in Apple Books on your iPad.
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Apple Book: Pages for iPad

Do.

Earn your certification as an Apple Teacher for iPads! The certification is free and easy to tackle, one badge at a time. To learn more about Pages specifically, follow the link by clicking below:
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Hour of Code

11/18/2019

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Discover.

With technology changing every industry on the planet, computing knowledge has become part of a well-rounded skill set. But fewer than half of all schools teach computer science! Good news is, we’re on our way to change this. If you heard about the Hour of Code last year, you might know it made history. 100 million students have now discovered how accessible and fun computer science can be by doing just one Hour of Code.
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The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics. Discover how to run an Hour of Code below.

Learn

To make implementation easy for you and fun for your students, I've curated resources for art, music, PE, and Young5s - 12th grade! Learn more by reading the short description of the activity that corresponds to your grade or subject area below and clicking the image to the right to access the resource.
Young 5s - Kindergarten 

Code Monkey Jr. is a free app designed for students 4-6 years old. Young coders will help a monkey collect bananas and unlock a treasure chest by counting and using arrows to control his movements. Click the app icon to the right for teacher info.
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1st - 2nd
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Scratch Jr. is a great app for storytelling and authentically weaves into classroom curriculum. In this activity, students will learn how to create a scene for a story that has a night sky with twinkling stars. Click the image to the right for teacher info.
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3rd - 4th

​Dance Party is web-based and easily accessible on the iPad by opening hourofcode.com/danceparty in a browser. Students will use drag-and-drop coding blocks to program characters to dance to popular songs. Headphones are highly recommended!
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5th - 6th

Lightbot: Code Hour is a free app that starts out simple and gets trickier. In this programming puzzle game, students will use game mechanics, logic, and problem-solving to light up tiles.
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7th - 8th
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Don't Drop the Phone is an entertaining Hopscotch activity that teaches students about sequencing and loops. A teacher lesson plan and 14 minute student video were created to seamlessly guide students. Download the free app, Hopscotch, today!
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High School

In this Hour of Code activity, students will be introduced to JavaScript through step-by-step video tutorials. They will practice newly learned concepts and apply their  understandings to a final creative project. Students will type hourofcode.com/khan in a browser. 
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Art

KANO Art Playground is web-based but easily accessible on the iPad. Students are provided 8 art challenges that use simple drag and drop coding blocks. Students type hourofcode.com/kanoart in a browser.
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PE
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You won't need access to iPads for this Hour of Code activity. There is a slideshow with dance moves already created and a recommended school-appropriate Spotify playlist. It's computer science, without a computer and gets you groovin'!
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Music

Students will visit codehs.com/hoc_music and watch video tutorials to learn how computer science relates to music. Students will choose various instruments and adjust the tempo as they create musical loops and share their beats.
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Do

Run an Hour of Code with your students from December 9th - 13th! Want an extra hand? I would love to come in and support you and your students. If that would be helpful, book time with me at your school. Please check your email for more information.

Print participation certificates for your students and share about Hour of Code in your class newsletters:
Next steps and FAQ
Newsletter Blurbs
Participation Certificates
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The Great Thanksgiving Listen

11/5/2019

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Discover.

The Great Thanksgiving Listen is an initiative that is encouraging and empowering students to create an oral history of the United States by recording interviews with their elders using the free Story Corps app. And while the program requires students be over 13 to publish their work using this specific app, the curricular ideas (check out the toolkit at the bottom of this page) can be modified and used by students of all ages. Discover more in this quick 1 minute video.

Learn.

The best way to learn more about this movement is to listen to some the heartwarming, and sometimes heartbreaking, stories. Below is a video of one animated story, as well as a link to many of the stories Story Corps has captured over the years. You can sort the stories by collection (i.e. justice, military, parenthood, etc.), date, and more.
Hear More Stories

Do.

Check out the toolkit and podcast below. There are many great resources that you can put to use right away.
Teacher Toolkit
Podcast
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Family History with Tour Builder

12/4/2017

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Discover.

It's time to spruce up your family history project with the use of Google's Tour Builder. Tour Builder allows you to create interactive digital stories by bringing together Google Earth maps, photos, and videos. Discover the power of this tool by watching the brief introductory video and viewing the sample tour project below (the example is not family history related).
Tour Builder Sample Project
Imagine using Tour Builder to map out historical events or settings in historical fiction books.

Learn.

Learn how to use Tour Builder in your classroom by watching the video below.

Do.

Below are two sets of directions to help you get started. There are step-by-step directions for you and a student handout for your students.
Step By Step Directions
Student Directions
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Seesaw Task Cards

11/6/2017

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Discover.

Task cards are a great way to support your students in adding meaningful work to their Seesaw journals. The below video is lengthy, but if you zoom forward to 15:00, you will discover how one teacher uses task cards during Daily Five.

Learn

Learn awesome ideas for task cards by exploring below.
Intro to SeeSaw Task Cards
Math Task Cards
More Math Task Cards
3rd Grade Task Cards
4th Grade Task Cards
5th Grade Task Cards
Daily Five Task Cards
"Activities" for Exit Slips

Do.

Use Google Slides to create task cards. Learn how below!
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Making the MOST of Google Slides

3/28/2017

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Discover.

If you think the only use for Google Slides is presentation creation, you're in for a treat. From virtual museums to interactive notebooks to stop motion videos, the possibilities are endless. Watch the video below to check out some examples in action.

Learn.

Learn how to take Google Slides beyond presentation software by clicking here.

Do.

Get inspiration from the examples below or consider using one of the following templates with your students. First, share a template with your students. (Learn how to share a template on Google Drive here.) Then, have your students access the shared template by clicking Shared with me in Google Drive.
Virtual Museum
Comic
Vocabulary Journal
Interactive Notebook
Fractions
Landform Study Guide
Homonym Book
Collaborative Storytelling
(Learn how multiple students can work on the same file here.)
Sorting Simlies and Metaphors
Word Sort
Design a Brochure
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Publishing Student Writing

12/14/2016

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​When I was a homeroom teacher, winter break marked the completion of many units and projects. Depending on where students were in the writing process, they would often publish their pieces before or after winter break. If your class is on the same page, the New Year will provide an opportunity to consider how your students will share their completed writing. In this post, I will present you with a variety of innovative ways for your students to publish and share their work with others, beginning with a few samples from my own students.
Get in Character
Below is an example of a student who wrote a biography and presented using a green screen to get in character.
Type and Illustrate Digitally
Create LapBooks
Buy Folders
Use foldables to create lapbooks. This works especially well with nonfiction. 
Publish Interactive Digital Books
Feature student work with QR codes. In this example, the codes link to the students' finished research papers (linked online through a publishing site called Issuu) and 30 second video clips/commercials introducing their ancient Egypt topics. Scan the QR codes below or click here for a commercial and here for a writing piece.
Blog!
Teach your students to be responsible digital citizens who are creators, not only consumres, of content. Create student blogs!

Learn.

Now that I've shown you a few ways my students have published their writing, I will introduce you to samples from other teachers.
Stop Motion
Use Stop Motion to animate and bring a story to life. Read Meghan Zigman's blog to learn how.
ChatterPix
ChatterPix is a free app that makes a photo come to life with speech. Kids can draw, paint, or collage images. They can also find real photographs online.

Do.

Not all writing gets published; so by asking your students to publish their work, you will be presented with the opportunity to talk with your students about the differences between the writing we keep for ourselves and the writing we publish. By having your students share their writing with others, they will be held to a different standard of excellence, and they will rise to the occasion to publish their best work.

Still looking for ideas? Check out 5 more tips here.
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