Readers, this blog is aimed at parents and carers (as well as schools) - please, feel free to share the blogpost with parents/carers via your chosen communication channels.
We are all adjusting to the new way of living during the Coronavirus pandemic. This includes parents having to juggle working from home whilst finding ways to share their children's learning with their teachers and keeping them feeling connected with their peers.
Sanna Eskelinen works for Adobe and is the Adobe Partnership Lead for LGfL and is also a mother of two primary aged girls. In this blog, I will explore some of the ways she is making distance learning manageable in their household by using Adobe Spark. Hopefully, the blog will give you some ideas that you could try from your home too whether you are a teacher or a parent (or both!).
As was the case many schools, Sanna's children were given a home learning pack which consisted of suggested activities for completion during the school closure. In the Learning Journal video below, Sanna explains how they got organised in the Eskelinen household and decided to use Adobe Spark pages to share the children's progress with the teachers, to save them from drowning in paper and to keep track of the girls' progress!
Adobe Spark pages are webpages which allow you to add images (either your own or from the free online collection), text and videos. Sanna explains that Adobe Spark is template-driven; which means you will end up with a great looking result no matter what you choose and that it gives you options on how to structure your content depending on the purpose. (N.B Adobe Spark for Education is free for all the schools and LGfL schools get support in setting it up. If you are a school and wish to enable all your teachers and students with Adobe Spark you can start here.)
Sanna explains in the video above that she is authoring the Adobe Spark pages for Anni (since she is in Reception) whilst Aino (Year 3) is curating her own. She has kindly shared the links to each learning journal below:
Visit Anni's Adobe Spark Learning Journal
Visit Aino's Adobe Spark Learning Journal
You will have seen that the children have used a blend of videos, text and images within their journals. Photographs have been taken to document work completed clearly such as daily handwriting and number formation practice but also shape hunts, science properties of materials etc. In addition, videos allow the girls to retell stories, narrate their own stories and even share singing-along to songs and their own compositions of songs.
We have also seen other amazing learning journals being authored using Adobe Spark Page across Europe! Rosie (Year 4) from Cheam Common Junior built a distance learning journal https://spark.adobe.com/page/NLqwjrX0QfJdg/ and Linnea (7 year-old) in Finland used it to update the teacher about the progress she is making at home: https://spark.adobe.com/page/RGRIJEC7Skfip/
Go here for further ideas on how to use Adobe Spark.
Dominic Traynor (@dom_traynor) is the "Education Evangelist" at Adobe and he has started a YouTube channel (where you can subscribe). On this channel he will be uploading Spark tutorial videos. He has noticed that lots of you have been doing daily workouts online; one of the first video uploaded from DigiDom talks you through how to create your own daily workout journal.
Dom has also been supporting the LEO Academy Trust, Sutton with live tutorials during the school closure, he has been really pleased with the results! Here is a tweet which shows some of the work:
Nothing beats being part of a creative community; that’s why Adobe created Creative Jams. These are events where local Adobe experts share a behind-the-scenes peek into their processes and projects and the attendees compete in a tournament that puts their creative skills to the test using Adobe Creative Cloud. In February we held a hugely successful Creative Jam for the LGfL community. As a result Adobe has now released a Creative Challenge Kit that could give schools (who have claimed their Adobe licences and distributed logins) the structure and assets to organise a Creative Jam with your students, either at the school or virtually. (Note - pupils will need to have an Adobe account to access the Premiere Rush video-editing application).
Created in partnership with The Ocean Agency and #glowinggone campaign the project gives students the opportunity to respond to a design challenge and create a digital video using amazing footage and Adobe's Premiere Rush video-editing application. It uses a global campaign on our oceans and climate change as the background for the challenge.
LGfL and Adobe recently hosted a Creative Jam. Adobe Spark has been used to share the 'Save the Ocean Creative Challenge' information and this may give you a clearer idea of what is possible with Spark: The main page and additional resources page.
To help ease the burden, if you are on Twitter or Facebook do look at #RemoteLearning #Edtech #HomeLearningUK people are being encouraged to share resources and make learning accessible by adopting these hashtags.
Remember, if you need any support with our learning content you can contact the Inspire Team by emailing contentsupport@lgfl.net or contact the LGfL Switchboard: 020 82 555 555. Also visit coronavirus.lgfl.net which is continually updated with advice and support during the partial school closures.
Finally, please do let us know what further support you would like to see LGfL offer during the school closures by posting them on LGfL’s Twitter or Facebook pages.