Lights, Camera, Action- Creating Within a Video Tool
To create my video for this week's assignment, I first did a little research. Honestly, not very much research at all though, I only looked into two tools before starting my video. I first did a little digging into the tool Screencast-O-Matic. It seemed pretty easy. However, I recalled back to our last class where our instructor demoed Adobe Spark for us. It seemed pretty easy and was pleasing to the eye. I recall him mentioning how it was very similar to a slides program like Power Point or Google Slides. There's something very familiar with slides programs like these, so I decided to give Adobe Spark a try. The reviews were all very helpful and painted this program as super easy to create within and super effective. The promo video, however, for Adobe Spark was not very helpful to me. It didn't give very much information on the program and was a bit "meh".
I jumped in to Adobe Spark, and was pleased at how easy it was. It was, in fact, very similar to creating within a Slides tool. Not only can you create videos within Spark, but you can also create web pages or graphics. I filtered my options by just videos, and jumped right into the first one at the top of the list, described as "popular" and labeled as "slideshow". I watched the quick video attached to it, and it seemed simple.
Creating within this tool was effortless. There was already background music attached to it. You can change the background music, but I was actually pretty happy with the music that was already on it. Adding images and text was no sweat. However, as far as text options went, there weren't a ton of customizable options as far as style, color, etc. Not a deal breaker though. Also, while you can change the positioning of the text on the screen, it doesn't always allow you to drag it exactly where you may want it, as it seems there may be some borders as to where the text is allowed to be dragged to. I also noticed that there are no drawing tools. Not a huge deal, but I would say out of all of the little "pitfalls" (text customization limitations, text positioning borders, and now no drawing tools), that the lack of drawing tools would be the biggest disappointment (although not a huge one). I appreciate how you can adjust the timing of each individual slide and how long they are presented. I could easily set slides with more text and content to be presented longer, and for those slides which may just have a simple image, I adjusted those to be presented much shorter. Slides could be rearranged and added between other slides with ease. I found myself rearranging/adding in often. While I did not end up recording any of my own audio for the final cut of my video, I did play around with it some, and and it was simple.
With it's ease of use and comforting familiarity of a slides program, I would probably rate the Adobe Spark tool a 9.5 out of 10! This is a great tool to use as a lesson, or in conjunction with a lesson. While I did not end up recording my own voice, I could see how this could be beneficial for when a teacher is not in. A substitute could play the video, and if the teacher's voice or video is attached, it could help the students in hearing that familiar voice when it is not present. My boyfriend, who is a photographer, has actually used Adobe Spark to create little promotional videos before!
Concluding with Sky Writing ... of course. I am glad you took to Spark and had some fun with it. It is easy to make the connection to how students would be able to take the same creative approach to sharing what they have learned and know.
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