We are very pleased to welcome Mrs. Laura Debos and her third graders to our AT&T Classroom The students started their day with Google Classroom and learned to navigate some of the platform’s key features. Google Classroom is a learning platform designed to provide a safe digital learning space where teachers and students can communicate and share content such as assignments and resources. Within Google Classroom, a teacher can create an assignment and choose how students complete the assignment (e.g., individually, small groups, whole class). The teacher is able to track who has completed the assignment and who has not and also provide feedback to individual students. Students are able to keep track of what’s due on the Assignments page and access their work from any device with a web browser. This morning the students used the Stream feature of Google Classroom that allows Mrs. Debos to post questions and assignments to her students and they are able to post replies. 
Later this morning the third graders were introduced to a new tool that they are using for a writing project. 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. This morning in the AT&T Classroom the third graders used Adobe Spark Page for a writing project in which Mrs Debos had given students the prompt, “One Day I will…”. In response to the prompt, students drafted text to describe a personal goal/dream for their future. The third grader’s used the tool’s customizable templates and backgrounds to format their text and conducted image searches within the tool’s gallery to find photos to represent key ideas in their narrative.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.
