Adobe Spark in the Classroom

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Oct 062017
 

adobe spark iconAdobe Spark is is a suite of FREE apps, including Video, Post, and Page, that allows you and your students to create beautiful social graphics, web stories and animated video – in minutes – without being a creative professional. With Spark in the classroom, you can easily create high quality reports, research papers, posters, writing assignments, presentations and so much more. See some examples and resources on the Adobe Spark in the Classroom page to discover how your classroom creativity can be enhanced. You and your students can use Adobe Spark on any desktop or laptop, Chromebook, or on any iOS device with the Adobe Spark apps. And yes, it is completely free!

Spark Video

Whether you want to gain a following, launch an idea, or support a cause, video is the most engaging way to communicate. Create and share compelling videos in minutes by easily combining video clips, photos and icons into an engaging product. Add impact with text overlay with no design experience required! You can also select from a wide variety of free soundtracks, bring in your own personal music, or even use your own voice to make your point. Spark Video also includes a wide array of rich visual themes to match your story, mood, and message. Each theme includes beautiful transitions and motion that bring your story to life.

Spark Post

Create stunning social graphics in minutes. Get started by previewing a huge assortment of professionally designed templates, and make it your own with a few simple steps. Turn your text and photo into a professional-looking graphic by simply applying the theme of your choice. You don’t need any design experience! Resize your text to your liking – beautiful typography is applied on the fly. It works like magic. There are also automatic sizing options so that your graphic is the perfect height and width for Facebook, Pinterest, or a banner for your web site or Canvas course. Once you have created your masterpiece, it’s simple to share it to social media, or download the image file to use as needed.

Spark Page

Create beautiful web stores by taking your photos, videos and text and easily adding them into a stunning professional web page layout. Photos can come from your own device, from your favorite cloud services, or choose from thousands of free stock photos. Your text, photos and videos instantly come into life with fluid, elegant motion. You call it easy, but your audience will call it amazing.

Simple Computer File Backup Solution for Educators – Backup & Sync for Google Drive

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Aug 082017
 

Google Drive iconLosing all of your teacher or personal files and photos is a painful experience. Setting up a good backup plan, and keeping up with it, is also painful, but less so than the alternative. Until now!

Last month, Google released a new tool called Backup and Sync for Google Drive and Google Photos. Backup and Sync is an app for Mac and PC that backs up files and photos safely in Google Drive and Google Photos, so they’re no longer trapped on your computer and other devices. Just choose the folders you want to back up, and Google will take care of the rest. The great thing is that since your school G Suite account allows you unlimited storage, you can store all of your important school files and any photos for free!

Backup and Sync works for both Google Photos (download) and Google Drive (download). Learn more about how Backup and Sync works here, or watch the video below.

Take and Easily Share Better Digital Photos, 2016 Secretaries Conference

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Feb 092016
 
Permalink: http://goo.gl/d4GUZP

Thanks for joining me today at the SEDC Secretaries Conference. Below is the presentation in PDF form – all of the links are live!

Here are the links included in the presentation:

Photo Sharing Made Easy with Yogile

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Mar 132014
 

Many times in the classroom, photos taken by the teacher or by students are used for many reasons: to document group or project work, to show evidence of learning, to identify real-world examples, etc. However, collecting, displaying and re-distributing all of these photos by the teacher back with the class can be a cumbersome process.

In the old-school days, I would have students bring digital cameras from home or use school cameras to go out and take photographs for certain lessons or activities. Then, I would gather all of the cameras, do my best to connect them to my computer to import the photos, and then use a tool like Photoshop or iPhoto to export the photos to create a web page that I could post to my site so that the students could see all of the photos taken for the activity or project. I found this activity to be very beneficial with my science students, but many teachers would not take the time nor would they have the knowledge and expertise to do this, especially in a timely manner.

Yogile.com has helped me to streamline this process. Instead of gathering photos myself, I just need to set up an account and create a new album on Yogile. The service has a very clean layout, and is very easy to use and discover what it can do. Once you have an album, Yogile will then:

  • allow me to upload photos from my computer directly to the album
  • give me a custom email address that anyone can use to post photos to the album by simply attaching them to the message – very easy to send from a smartphone, camera phone or other mobile device
  • give me a custom URL to display the photos in the album
  • allow me to name & caption all of the photos in the album
  • allow me to view the album as a slideshow, download all of the photos in the album with a click, or easily share the album on Twitter & Facebook
  • will even create the code needed to embed the album on a Web site

There are a couple of drawbacks when using the free version of the service. Uploaded photos are automatically deleted after 14 days, so I would advise downloading the photos once they are all gathered or submitted. Also, Uploads are limited to 100 MB of photos per month per account or album. For $45/year, you can remove both of these restrictions.

Take and Easily Share Better Digital Photos

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Jan 302014
 
Permalink: http://goo.gl/0V5eGC

Thanks for joining me today at the SEDC Secretaries Conference. Below is the presentation in PDF form – all of the links are live!

Here are the links included in the presentation:

Prepping Images for the Web: More Than Meets the Eye

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Nov 212013
 

Permalink: http://goo.gl/51FOO (capital o’s, not zeros)

Direct link to presentation

Links from Presentation & Additional Resources:

Tutorial: Grey Skies to Blue with Pixlr

Tutorial: Taking The Years Off with Photoshop

Photoshop For Educators

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Aug 022011
 

CVHS Lab 221 – U: photo P: shop

So, what exactly is the Power of Photoshop? What can it do?

You can also get the YouTube version here.

 

First off, let’s take a look at the toolbar and the functions of each tool:

Image of exploded toolbar and what each tool does. 

Next, let’s look at the Type tool and the all of the Blending Options available for making headlines, web link images, and text-based graphics. The blending options can give your text a simple drop shadow, added depth with bevels & embossing, or inner and outer glows.

The cloning tool, or rubber stamp, and the healing tool can do wonders for clearing up problems with a photo – you can remove a pimple or an entire person!

Now, let’s turn to using Photoshop to creating images from scratch using the available tools and filters.

First, let’s make wood from scratch. The handout has the instructions for completing this project, or you can obtain them here online. Here is what our final image should look like (click on the image for a larger view):

Wood_lg

Next, let’s take a photo of a nice day and turn it into a gloomy, rainy day. Here is the starting image:

Rain_start

Now, follow these instructions, or you can follow along in the handout to make this image look like this:

Rain_end

Next, let’s create an image of a bullet fired from a gun completely from scratch. This tutorial will give you a great feel for using layers. Here are the instructions or refer to the handout, and here is what your final image should look somewhat like:

Bullet

Lastly, we will create a checkered flag waiving in the wind entirely from a blank screen. In this advanced tutorial, we will use a displacement map to create the sense of movement in our image. The instructions are included in the handout or you can download them here, and here is what the final image should look like:

Flag

If you are craving more step-by-step tutorials, here are a couple of great resources:

Digital Photography: The Basics and Beyond – Summer 2011

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Jul 262011
 

Here’s the agenda for our session, along with the videos, links, and resources that we’ll need for the day. 

Agenda:

  • Welcome & Introductions  9:00 – 9:15 AM
  • How to Choose the Right Camera 9:15 – 9:30 AM
  • Photo Pre-Test 9:30 – 9:45 AM
  • Show-N-Tell & Photo Taking Tips 9:45 – 10:15 AM
  • Photo Assignment & Upload 10:15 – 10:45 AM
  • Break 10:45 – 11:00 AM
  • First Pass 11:00 – 11:15 AM
  • Edit & Share 11:15 – 12:00 AM
  • Discussion & Trial of Online Photo Services 12:00 – 12:45 AM
  • Q&A, Take Your Pulse & Wrap-Up 12:45 – 1:00 PM

David Pogue NYTimes Video on DSLR’s:

Online Photo Editing/Sharing Sites:

Group Photo Sharing Sites:

    Take Your Pulse online survey

    Digital Photography: Basics & Beyond

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    Jun 292010
     

    Here’s the agenda for our session, along with the videos, links, and resources that we’ll need for the day.??

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    Agenda:

    • Welcome & Introductions?? 9:00 – 9:15 AM
    • How to Choose the Right Camera 9:15 – 9:30 AM
    • Photo Pre-Test 9:30 – 9:45 AM
    • Show-N-Tell & Photo Taking Tips 9:45 – 10:15 AM
    • Photo Assignment & Upload 10:15 – 10:45 AM
    • Break 10:45 – 11:00 AM
    • First Pass 11:00 – 11:15 AM
    • Edit & Share 11:15 – 12:00 AM
    • Discussion & Trial of Online Photo Services 12:00 – 12:45 AM
    • Q&A, Take Your Pulse & Wrap-Up 12:45 – 1:00 PM
    ??
    ??
    David Pogue NYTimes Video on DSLR’s:

    ??

    ??
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    Online Photo Editing/Sharing Sites:
    Take Your Pulse??online survey