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Primer: Adobe Spark WhY YOU MIGHT LIKE it

Spark is a free web-based tool for stylishly making 3 things:

1. POST - cool images from text + image (think social media)

2. PAGE - very much like a webpage or fancy blog post

3. VIDEO - Combines your video and photos with text

Reasons to Like SpaRK:

Seriously
So there's nothing to download or install!

Spark is about making cool, classy digital visuals for online use.

It's designed to be streamlined and simple, limiting your options but almost guaranteeing good results. Its 3 components, Post, Page, and Video, give you tools to make a variety of things.

Before we get into the possibilities, though, there are a few cautions you should know:

1. You'll need to sign in using either a Google, Facebook or Adobe account (which is free). The good news is that in April, 2018, Adobe decided to give free access to "Premium" stuff to schools, teachers and students!

2. Until/unless your school Adobe account administrator sets up the account for Spark, you'll have a Spark watermark on everything you make.

3. They store all your content on their servers. That's mostly good news, but it could make for some security or access issues in some odd cases.

4. I ran into some trouble when I was using AdBlock Plus and had to disable it for the Spark site. Not a big deal, just a note!

The first Spark component:

POST

Post lets you make an image using ingredients like photos, graphics and text. Here are some examples...

This is a graphic I made for our Instagram account.
This is another simple graphic we can use for Instagram or Twitter
This is a little collage, made quickly with one of many templates.
Here's a quick variation on the previous image.
And here's another variation, using a filter on the image. All are quick and easy to use.
Remember this? I made it using some free photos that Spark gives you access to.

Those are just a few examples of what journalism teachers and students might want to use Post for. It's simple, stylish and has a short, gentle learning curve. It has templates for all sorts of social media formats.

If you start into Spark using Post, it'll ease you into the whole Spark application.

And now FOR Page...

For starters, this page was made with Page. It's great for making things like this: you don't need a website since Adobe hosts it and just you link to it.

It's great for online journalism too. Here's a sample I whipped up from a story that my students did on the March 14 March For Our Lives event.

Here's a great story done in Spark Page by Caeli Chesin.

This page is another way to use it: photo-centric package that is flexible and let's you do a variety of things.

Last, this is a little Page I made to talk to students about "not seeing the forest for the trees." The main reason I'm including it because all the images I used were free ones I found in Spark through a quick search. There are tons of great photos available.

And THen there's: Spark Video

The best way to explain Spark Video is...a Spark Video! Have a look!

Credits:

Created with images by PublicDomainPictures - "black bright burn celebrate celebration christmas fire"

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