RCET is excited to welcome Mrs. Villamil and her fifth grade class from Lakeview Intermediate (Stow-Munroe Falls City Schools) to the AT&T Classroom. Over the next two weeks the students will be exploring several digital tools they will be using with their projects and assignments in social studies. The fifth graders started their afternoon by exploring Google Earth. Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that allows you to view satellite imagery, maps, roads/streets, terrain, and 3D buildings. This afternoon the fifth graders explored the tools in Google Earth and practiced navigating and searching for locations in satellite and street views.
Later this afternoon the students were introduced to two design and writing tools they will be using in social studies. Adobe Spark Page is part of the Adobe Spark platform that offers tools for sharing and creating visual stories in three different media formats. Adobe Spark Page can be used for creating digital stories and web pages that include pictures, videos, text, and web links.
In addition to Adobe Spark Page, the platform includes two other tools - Adobe Spark Post and Adobe Spark Video. Adobe Spark Post can be used for creating graphics for posters, flyers, and social media. Adobe Spark Video can be used for creating movies/videos by adding text, images, and voice-over to slides. The tool includes access to a library of free music that can be used solely or added in the background of voice-over narration. All Adobe Spark tools can be used at no cost in your web browser (including Chromebooks) or via their free mobile iOS app for ipads.
The fifth graders were also introduced to Buncee Edu, a free multiplatform tool that students can use to create multimedia projects. The platform offers an interactive digital canvas with thematic background templates that can be used to create stories, books, presentations, pamphlets, posters, etc. Students are able to customize the templates by adding animations, pictures, text, drawings, and videos. The Buncee platform also offers a very large gallery of searchable media that students can use in their projects or students have the option to import external media from their computers or other websites. Completed Buncee projects can be viewed online and/or saved as PDFs.
