This article is about Adobe Spark, a free online technology that lets you produce great images, presentations, leaflets, campaigns and much more. It offers hundreds of templates, which can be adapted to suit your requirements, and it also provides a huge collection of free-to-use pictures, icons and graphics. There are a lot of graphic tools around, but Adobe Spark has several advantages over many of those currently available:
- Many free tools only allow you to share your work on the cloud. With Adobe Spark, you can also download any images, handouts, leaflets, etc that you produce.
- There is no time limit on using it: the basic package is free forever.
- You are not limited to the free pictures they provide: you can upload your own pictures as well.
- You can make simple videos with Adobe Spark, and these can include your own voiceover – which makes it the ideal tool to encourage your students to practise speaking.
Using it with students
I like using Adobe Spark for the final stages of a task-based groupwork activity. So, for example, if my students have been doing a questionnaire about what their classmates do to recycle their rubbish, the final stage can be that they create an infographic with a summary of their findings, which they can then share with the class. There are plenty of free infographic templates to choose from, and the students can simply change these to adapt them to their data.
Another way I have used Adobe Spark is to make use of the storyboard templates. These are sequences of pictures or instructions, and they can easily be used to create stories or sequences of events. So, for example, a student can create a storyboard about their daily routine, and write below each picture. They can do the same for a recent holiday, a story or what they did last weekend. In a recent class I did in Italy, the students chose a film they liked and used one of the storyboards to create a representation of the basic plot, which they then shared in groups.
I have even been using Adobe Spark in my own language studies, and I produced a storyboard in Polish of my daily routine, which I could then talk about with my teacher.
There are also really useful templates for things like recipes, adverts, announcements – and even birthday or Christmas cards. Adobe Spark can cater to almost any level or age group. For example, for higher levels and business English students there are some interesting resumé templates. So they could produce their own CVs/resumés, as if applying for a job.
Recording video commentaries
I have always liked tools that encourage the students to record themselves speaking and then allow them to share the resulting video or audio with the teacher or the rest of the class. Adobe Spark is ideal for this. You can choose one of the video templates and then add your own pictures or adapt the text to make your own personalised video. What’s more, you can add your own voice afterwards. This allows the students to work individually or in groups and to produce an audio commentary to go along with a video. This is great for a number of different activities. For example:
- creating a short biography of someone famous;
- giving a description of your morning routine;
- talking about hobbies and interests;
- creating a video campaign about how to improve the environment or how to save water;
- creating a video with tips on how to learn a language.
Producing the videos
Producing a good video requires planning and organisation, and it is a good idea to get your students into the habit of following a series of steps:
- Decide on the topic.
- Decide what pictures you will need and what order they will go in.
- Decide on the script that will go with each picture.
- Practise reading the script aloud before recording it.
- Record the script.
- Put the video together.
Adobe Spark allows you to download the videos you create, so your students can build up a collection of recordings over time. This can easily be added into a blog or e-portfolio, and can be used as evidence of learning.
Adobe Spark is a great thing to learn to use, because it is a single tool that can do many things. As such, it will be useful for both teachers and students. I have made a video to help you learn how to use Adobe Spark. You can see this at >https://youtu.be/PGyvYQvduEA.
Russell Stannard is the founder of www.teachertrainingvideos.com, which won a British Council ELTons award for technology. He is a freelance teacher and writer and also a NILE Associate Trainer.
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