Ed. note: App of the Week picks are now being curated by the editors of Common Sense Education [1], which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly. Click here [2]to read the full app review.
Adobe Spark [2]
What’s It Like?
Adobe Spark is a design and media-creation platform that’s best used on the web but is also available on iOS and Android (soon). The platform features three project types: Post (social graphics), Page (web stories), and Video (animated videos). Each of these features used to exist as a separate app — Adobe Post, Adobe Slate [3], and Adobe Voice [4] — but now they all exist within Spark. Work is automatically synced across the web and iOS apps; published Page and Video projects are hosted on Adobe servers.
Price: Free
Grades: 8-12
Rating: 5/5
Pros: Lots of inspiring examples with ongoing updates, plus it’s easy to select and cite Creative Commons-licensed images.
Cons: Terms of use specify age 13 and up, and teachers should be aware of sharing settings.
Bottom line: This free, one-stop shop for creating sleek graphics, web stories, and animated videos is incredibly easy to use and challenges students to think critically about visual presentation.