Super Tech Talk: Awesome iPad App: Spark Page

Monday, June 27, 2016

Awesome iPad App: Spark Page

Adobe recently recently rebranded several of their apps and now collectively calls them Adobe Spark. With Adobe Spark students can communicate ideas and learning with stunning visuals and multimedia, each focusing on a different presentation format (video, social media, and web page). I believe all three apps should be a part of everyone's presentation toolbox. All three Spark apps make it easy to create professional looking presentations that include stunning images, videos, and text.

I previously wrote about Adobe Voice (now rebranded as Spark Video), which is used to create amazing student narrated videos. Today I played with Spark Page and found a new favorite presentation app. Students can add pictures, videos, and text to create polished web stories with magazine-style themes. It’s so simple and easy to use that students in most grade levels and across all subject areas can use it.

It is available as a free app for mobile devices and also has a web page. Students can log in with an email address or their GAFE accounts. Projects are synced across all devices.

I embedded a short presentation I created while practicing with Spark Page. It was super easy and looks great!

Once students are logged in, either by creating free account or signing in with their GAFE credentials, they create their first project by tapping the + button at the bottom of the screen. From this main screen students can also view sample projects from the gallery and have quick access to their saved pages.

Students are then prompted to add a title and a cover picture.

When selecting images for any part of the project, students can choose from a variety of sources, such as the camera, Photos app, and even search high quality, creative commons photos.

Students can then start adding a variety of elements to their Spark Page, including images, text, links, and videos. One of my favorites is glideshow, where students add several images and they slowly transition as the user scrolls or swipes up the web page.

Adding links creates a button, that when tapped, take the user to other websites for additional information. Students just need to add the text for the button and the URL for the website.

When the project is done, students tap the share icon and choose their settings. Projects can be public or private. They must select a category and can add their information as the author of the post.