Adobe Spark
One aspect of Spark that I appreciate is that not only can it be used on iOS devices, but also syncs between devices, so that students could work at school on a laptop or iPad and then at home on their iPhone, which means that it “truly is an integrated solution” to supporting project-based learning (Adobe Spark, n.d., p.4). Project-based learning in the art room can involve presenting a theme or main idea (subject matter) and having students address that through media of their choice, or the opposite – teaching a type of media, and students demonstrating understanding through choice of subject matter. If my students know that they will be asked to create a presentation about what they created, how they made it, and what the purpose was, their engagement level would increase immensely. In this way, I would use Spark for student portfolios, photo essays, narrative prompts, or for primary students, playing with shapes and colors, as “younger children, even preschoolers, find Spark Video easy and accessible” (Adobe Spark, n.d., p.7).
Copyright and Creative Commons
Another aspect is the sharing of work beyond the classroom or school. “Especially in situations where students wish to share their work more broadly (by distributing it to the public, for example, or including it as part of a personal portfolio), educators should take the opportunity to model the real-world permissions process, with explicit emphasis not only on how that process works, but also on how it affects media making. (Action Coalition for Media Education, n.d., p.13, 14). This is an area that I would need to explore more fully in order to give my students correct information about sharing publicly. It is imperative for “educators to communicate their own learning about copyright and fair use to others, both through practice and through education. Learners mastering the concepts and techniques of media literacy need to learn about the important rights that all new creators, including themselves, have under copyright to use existing materials. Educators also need to share their knowledge and practice with critically important institutional allies and colleagues, such as librarians and school administrators” (Action Coalition for Media Education, n.d., p.14). I am now much more aware of the responsibility I have in making sure that myself, my students, and my colleagues are educated about how Copyright and Creative Commons apply to visual learning and project-based learning.
Extensions with Chrome
Add-ins with Office 365
References
Action Coalition for Media Education. (n.d.). Code of best practices for fair use in media literacy
education. Retrieved from Center for Social Media:
https://mediaeducationlab.com/sites/mediaeducationlab.com/files/CodeofBestPracticesinFairUse.pdf
Adobe. (n.d.). Adobe Spark: A guide for Schools and Educators. Retrieved from Adobe Spark:
https://spark.adobe.com/images/Adobe%20Spark%20Edu%20Guide.pdf
Creative Commons. (n.d.). About the licenses. Retrieved from Creative Commons:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Gonzalez, J. (2016). Project based learning: Start here. Retrieved from Cult of Pedagogy:
https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/project-based-learning/