Looking Ahead to Showcasing Student Digital Portfolios

It is already April! It won’t be long before families will be visiting to celebrate the learning the students have done over the year.

One of the ways to catalog and showcase student work is through their digital portfolios. Whether your students have created Seesaw portfolios, Google Sites, or chosen another platform, students can display much of their digital work through these sites.

Often, a URL can be uploaded. In the first example, the student added the URL of an Adobe Spark video through “Link” in Seesaw.

That same video can be added to Google Sites by using the URL.

When students chose that method, the link will take the viewer out to the original website where the student work was created. The downside, is that if the work is deleted from the website, the URL will no longer work. The plus side is that the work can continue to be edited and reposted.

To avoid losing work when website work is deleted, work can be saved on the device and uploaded.  The downside is that downloaded copy of the work will not be editable in the iPad’s Camera roll or through Google Drive.

Here, the student used Download to save a copy of his Adobe Spark video. Once it is downloaded, it can be uploaded or saved to Google Drive. From there, it can be added to Google sites by using the insert function. See how to save it the file to Google Drive on a Chromebook by reading the blog post, Adobe Spark Update with Help from John Funk's 6th Grade Class .

In this case, the video will play in Google Sites.

If you choose to upload a video from Google Drive or from the iPad Camera roll to Seesaw, there is an extra step. Make sure, you choose to use the Upload Video option when you Upload File.

There are lots of creative web and iOS apps that can be showcased in Seesaw and/or Google Sites. Check out this Symbaloo site for some examples.

Looking at all of these apps can be a bit overwhelming. Your Tech ToSAs are happy to talk to you about what you are doing in class and how an app can integrate into your curriculum, and provide your students a way to demonstrate their learning. We’d love to help. Please contact us at pacadag@unionsd.org or at lynchm@unionsd.org

Adobe Spark Update with Help from John Funk's 6th Grade Class

Last year, many teachers introduced their students to Adobe’s digital storytelling tools as a powerfully visual way to demonstrate their learning. In the younger grades, teachers created a class account, but in the upper grades, students were able to create their own Adobe accounts.

This year, as students began to use Adobe, they were asked to enter their birthday. If the student was under 13, they were denied use of Adobe Spark. Adobe now requires its account owners to be at least 13 years old. While this is a barrier, students may still use Adobe if their teacher creates the account and allows the students access through the teacher’s username and password. While Adobe projects are not collaborative, only one student can work on a single project at a time, there can be multiple sign-ins on a single teacher account which means students can concurrently work in the same account.

Having all students sign in with the same username and password means that all students have access to all the work on the account. However, once a student creates work, they can download it and save it to their Google Drive.  Thanks to John Funk and his students, Alex, Devin, and Ellie, for creating this Google Slide Presentation to show us how to download an Adobe Spark video on a Chromebook and then upload it to Google Drive. Just follow their step-by-step directions.

This gives the student ownership of the work they created. Although Adobe work saved in Google Drive can’t be edited there, students can use the Google Drive URL to easily add their finished work to their Google Site. Just make sure to share the video as you would any Google Drive file. And, once the work is saved in the student’s drive, the teacher can delete the student’s work from their list of projects, making the list more manageable to navigate.

Students using iPads can also use Adobe Spark as long as they are using their teacher’s username and password. For primary students who have one-to-one iPads, the teacher may want to sign them in, but as long as the user doesn’t sign out, Adobe Spark will remain signed in. Students can easily save Adobe Spark to the iPad Camera Roll. Once downloaded, teachers can remove the student’s work from their Adobe Account. Students can upload the movie from the iPad Camera Roll to Seesaw (click here to watch a how-to video) or Google Drive (click here to watch a how-to video on how to upload to Google Drive). From Google Drive, students can easily add their finished work to their Google Site. Just make sure to share the video as you would any Google Drive file.

Adding Chromebook Photos to Adobe Spark Video

When students are creating Adobe Spark media, they may like to add photos of art or projects they have created. While it takes a few (ok, a bunch) of extra steps, once students get the workflow down, it can become a fairly routine process. Find out how to do it here.

While our students love using Adobe Spark to make video, they can also use Adobe Spark to create graphic Posts or tell a story with Page. To help students, Adobe offers suggestions on how to storyboard different types of presentations. Genevieve has collected and created Google Docs for many of them here.

Still need a little inspiration sparking ideas? Adobe offers a guide for educators with lesson ideas and examples. But of course, some of the best ideas come from brainstorming (be one of the first five people to correctly answer this question and win a small prize) curricular ideas with your colleagues. Please let us know how you are using Adobe Spark. We’d love to share your ideas and your students’ creations by featuring them in our blog.

When you are ready to share the tool with your students, we’d love to help. As always, the Tech ToSAs are here to help.