Note: Adobe has replaced Spark tools with Adobe Express. Spark Video is part of Adobe Express.
Adobe Spark Video is a great tool for students to use to create videos. Adobe Spark is especially useful because it works through a web browser and hence is a great application for use with Chromebooks.
The following is the page you will encounter when you connect. You are going to want to create an account.
You can create various types of projects with Adobe Spark. My tutorial describes the slideshow.
The following video takes you through the basics of creating with Adobe Spark
Here is the final product from the project described above.
Once in a while, you encounter an idea that explains some things you have found puzzling. This is the case with the concept of “Desirable Difficulty“. This concept would be one way to understand my previous post on the advantages of taking notes by hand over taking notes on a laptop. Taking notes by hand is more demanding for most and learners compensate by summarizing content before recording. There are long term benefits to generating summary content over recording more verbatim information.
Bjork explains how a tendency to be misled into engaging in activities that seem to offer an immediate advantage may have less productive long term consequences. He differentiated retrieval strength and storage strength. Learning that is too easy (e.g., cramming) can result in an immediate advantage in retrieval strength, but may limit the development of storage strength. Long-term benefits depends on the development of storage strength.
This distinction can be applied to the immediate advantage of taking more complete verbatim notes over notes that require personal understanding (i.e., a summary).
As I hope is apparent, personal decisions are at the core of the problem. You tell students to space their study and not cram or work with their notes to create interpretations and not just verbatim copies of what was presented, but what easiest and falsely perceived to be more useful often win out.
One more comment – the suggestion of purposefully making things a bit more difficult must be carefully interpreted. The point is about engaging in cognitive processes that are more productive and perhaps more demanding and not to create needless struggles.
Bjork, R.A. (1994). Memory and metamemory considerations in the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. Shimamura (Eds.), Metacognition: Knowing about knowing (pp. 185-205). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
I am interested in the process of writing. Originally, I was interested in my own writing and how I might write more productively and efficiently. Gradually., I became interested in student writing. My first interest was in what I would describe as writing to learn and this focus came about because I was convinced what was called Web 2.0 (I called it the participatory web) provided a practical way for individuals to express themselves for an actual audience. In doing so, it made sense that the process of visible expression required deeper thought and a better understanding of what you wanted to share. An interest in the role of technology in learning to write and in collaborative writing followed. I hope this makes sense. There are multiple components here and I am trying to outline how these components are interconnected and came to be as much for myself as for anyone who reads this description.
As I have spent time learning about writing and how the process might be conceptualized and developed, my way of thinking about what writing involves has expanded. This expansion has been useful because it allowed me to include a long-time interest in student and personal note-taking in how I came to think about writing. Recently, I have been reading a book entitled “How to take smart notes”. The full title which is much longer explains that the book is really about writing as a broad process that begins in reading/listening, moves to note-taking, and then explains how learning and creativity are involved in the progression to generating a text for others. I have found that the full model offered me a lot to consider and to write about. Eventually, some of the writing will likely appear on this site. For now, just accept my recommendation for this book.
Anyway, the topic of note-taking plays a crucial role in this book and especially a type of note-taking that I would describe as an investment in the future of personal understanding and knowledge building. By investment, I mean that the process described involves the immediate accumulation of interesting ideas and important concepts in what the text describes as a slip box. This was a descriptive term used by the originator of the process outlined in the book to describe a physical box in which short, but well-written statements were saved. These “notes” were then linked to other notes in the box through a notation system. Eventually, an author could use these linked statements to create an informative document. Of course, many of us can immediately imagine how to use technology to apply this system and this is part of the message of the book’s author, but there are some basic ideas that are of greater general value. For example, the “slips” amount to more than the highlights or edge of page annotations created while reading, but rather well-formed and personalized statements created from primary sources. Such brief summarizations or insights are closer to a core product of writing than a physical copy of a snippet of the original.
One of the comments from the book and a great example of the cognitive behavior that is at the core of why the writing process is productive was provided in a “side observation” offered by the author. This observation was that while the author kept offering suggestions for how technology might be a great way to implement the ideas from the original “slip box” process, the author suggested that the process of writing notes by hand might be more beneficial than the digital equivalent. I have been having a kind of “meta” experience as I write about my reading and relating of this idea. The author is writing about how to find productive associations among ideas and I see such an association in what I already knew about the logic of taking notes on paper (I have taken notes by hand in a decade) and why I still advocate for digital processing of the entire process of idea storage to final written products.
The author cites a study (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014) in support of his position. I have read this study and have existing notes on the pdf of the article I store in my collection. There were three studies in this article comparing performance (comprehension and application) following exposure to an audio lecture and note-taking. All three studies involved one group that took notes by hand and another that took notes on a computer. There are other multiple studies on this issue and because I have a bias toward the value of technology I look for several things in the methodology of studies arguing for the benefit of taking notes by hand. Is the performance test immediate or delayed? If the test is delayed, are learners allowed to review their notes before taking the exam. In comparison to just listening or reading, note-taking offers two potential benefits – external storage and a task that may involve more productive processing of the input. Taking notes on a computer typically results in more content being recorded as most of us can take notes faster on a computer than by hand. If I am reviewing my class notes weeks later, I want a more detailed account. Mueller and Oppenheimer found greater detail in keyboard note-taking, but in their third study with a delayed exam found a benefit for taking notes by hand. They argue that when faced with the reality that you cannot possibly keep up, handwriting requires you to summarize and record key ideas producing the best long-term value. This ends up being the argument used in advocating handwritten notes for the slip box. Summary and key idea notes are what is valuable in writing. It is kind of a less is more argument.
I am still not a believer although I buy the notion that at some point you need to process the original input for personal meaning. The proposal that an approach that is slower (handwriting) and as a consequence encourages deeper processing (also slower) seems to argue for some approach that is must address these two limitations. Both slow and slower strain the limits of working memory. The issue with deeper processing is when this more productive processing should happen – during the presentation (as saved to summary notes) or when studying more complete notes. Here is my criticism of the Mueller study in making the suggestion for practice that appears to be made and is picked up by Ahren’s book. . Allowing a few minutes to review notes before taking an exam is not my idea of studying for an exam. Certainly, if this is all of the time allowed good summaries would be most helpful. However, if I had a day or so and at least the night before to study a large body of lecture notes I would prefer access to notes that are more complete. When doing this, I would prefer more complete notes I could think about (process for meaning and application).
I think there are tools appropriate to the task of taking digital notes and providing a better delayed experience. The two recommendations that follow record the audio of a presentation (this is the input Mueller uses) and allows for the taking of notes. The apps link the notes to locations in the audio. If on reexamining the notes to see if they make sense (hopefully initially close in time to when the notes are taken) something does not make sense. Small portions of the audio can be replayed for additional processing.
Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers
Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological science, 25(6), 1159-1168.
“The day the good Internet died” is the title of a post by Katie Ringer lamenting what she sees as the decline of the Internet. She associates the date with the end of Google Reader which she argues was not even a great RSS reader, but easy and free and functional. RSS readers allowed users to select content sources (mostly blogs) that a user sometimes has found useful and then check the reader to determine when new content has been posted to these sources. A quick scan would indicate whether the new additions focused on anything of interest and the user can then open the promising content and read further. No doom scrolling through a feed of content from folks you might know or sources you sometimes find interesting but prioritized for your viewing by algorithms not explained to you and now assumed to increase your viewing time to offer the social media service the opportunity to show you more targeted ads and make more money.
Ringer’s observation is not unique (e.g., Wired story). RSS readers still exist and are better than Google Reader, but too few people use them. The decline of use has a secondary negative impact. Blogs are receiving less attention resulting in bloggers abandoning their independent outlets and focusing on social media aggregators (e.g., Facebook) to find an audience. Again, the reader ends up with less control of their content exploration experience.
Things may be changing. Google is exploring adding a “Follow” button within Google Chrome as a simple type of RSS. At present the button only exists within the android version of chrome, but Google promises they are working on a version for iOS.
For the time being, try the Chrome extension from Inoreader. As an RSS reader, Inoreader can be accessed as a website or from the RSS extension. You can get a free account that will meet the needs of most people at least in getting started.
The web option looks like the following with the list of feeds and controls in the left panel and snippets from unread posts on the right.
Adding a new feed to Inoreader works this way. In the left-hand column, locate the “Add new” listing. Options for the source type will appear. Adding a feed for a blog requires you select the “Feed” option. This will open a text field for pasting the URL for the blog to be added.
The use of the chrome extension works a little differently. If you are examining a blog and want to add the feed for that blog to InoReader, select the Inoreader icon in the menu bar. This will automatically enter the URL for that site in a text box and selecting the + button will complete the process of adding that feed. Selecting the icon from the menubar also provides access to unread links from the feeds you follow. Select a subscription and you can then view any of the unread posts.
The Polarization Lab (Duke University) has conducted some interesting research on political polarization. They have developed tools you can use to estimate the orientation of your Twitter feed and bots you can use to expose yourself to positions taken with the opposite orientation. The premise of their work is that exposure to different perspectives can reduce bias.
Check my echo is a tool that compares the orientation of the politically oriented Twitter accounts you follow to prominent politicians, journalists, and advocates to generate a score on the polarization of those you follow.
The Lab offers bots to expand your perspective. The bots pass on tweets liked by prominent liberals and conservatives. The idea being liberals should friend the bot forwarding tweets liked by conservatives to gain insight into the positions taken by those unlikely to show up in their feeds.
My Instructional Design and Technology class a week or so ago was discussing WebQuests as an example of a scaffolded information problem-solving task. I assume folks who read this blog have memories of the popularity of WebQuests. I say memories because even good educational ideas seem to fade as newer things come along.
I conclude my classes by having a student volunteer or me when no one has something to present offer a short description of a tech tool or service they feel educators should explore. A student described Parlay – a tool intended to help educators structure discussion. We noticed some similarities of the structure of a Parlay discussion and WebQuest and decided the Parlay approach might be a way to extend a WebQuest into a discussion or a debate.
A Parlay “design” is organized into four components – goals, content, discussion questions, and peer responses. Parlay offers a collection of lessons within what the service describes as the Parlay Universe.
You can also choose to create your own lesson and assign it to a class or maybe eventually contribute it to the Parlay Universe.
I have a favorite WebQuest called the “Snow Goose Dilemma” I created many years ago. I redid this exercise using Parlay and a YouTube video I found within Parlay.
Parlay generates pseudonyms for participants so responses to the discussion questions are anonymous (the teacher has access to a dashboard that provides actual identities and other information about student activity). Other students are then invited to offer feedback (respond) to the question responses. Depending on the content and discussion questions this could easily become a format for lessons in argumentation.
Parlay offers educators a free trial with a cost of $160 per year. This price likely will put many off because it may seem a service one would use occasionally. The company sees things differently. It is too bad there are not other more intermediate opportunities for participation.
I was a big HyperCard fan and had a great time using the capabilities of that application to create interesting projects. I was interested in creating virtual learning environments and came up with a concept I called Grandma’s Attic. The idea was that an attic contained all kinds of content that might be regarded as historical artifacts. One could create a virtual attic and have learners explore this attic to collect information to respond to specific requests.
HyperCard offered some capabilities I cannot find in the multimedia tools now available. It had a scripting language and it made use of an object-oriented approach with some interesting capabilities. You could stack objects on top of each other and on top of a card. An object you clicked on would respond to the click if a handler existed or the click would fall through to the next layer (background, card, stack, HyperCard). So, for example, a click on an object on a card might trigger movement to a different card showing that object in a different state (say a closed book to an open book revealing text).
I was reminded of this capability and wanted to see how closely I could mimic some of these capabilities in Google Slides. If so, there would seem to be interesting capabilities for the creation of something like the virtual environments I created in HyperCard.
I actually found a screen capture of one of the displays from the HyperCard activity I created many years ago. One of the objects in one of the attics was a trunk containing stuff – a diary, bundle of letters, photo album, etc. It was easy to bring this image into Google Slides and then use a text box to offer some context about the image.
Slides has the capability of attaching links to objects. I used the square object from Objects and covered the diary.
Objects can be filled with various colors. Grey seems to be the default. I wanted the square object to be invisible and found you can set the fill to transparent. A thin line does mark the location of the “invisible button”, but this seemed fine.
This is the tricky part because it is not obvious from the menu bars that this capability exists. If you right-click (control-click) on an object, this list of options appears. You can use the “Link” option to create an action when the shape is clicked. In this case, I wanted to sent the user to a different slide. Note that the idea would be to have multiple objects used as hotspots to send users to different slides.
So, imagine clicking on the diary and you end up viewing a diary page (just a text field on another slide).
You do need to understand some other features of Slides to approximate what I used to do with HyperCard. First, images, shapes, text boxes appear on slides in layers. You might not notice this unless one object overlaps another. Obviously, you need the invisible button on top of the image of the diary/trunk. Use the “Order” option available in the same menu used to connect a link to an object to manipulate the order in which different objects are layered on the slide.
When you force a tool to do things the designers of that tool did not anticipate, you often have to use creative hacks to get what you want done. Here is an example. Slides is designed to advance slide to slide and not necessarily to jump around using linked buttons. You really want to disable the card to card progression if you can. In the example of the trunk, you don’t want mouse clicks on surfaces other than those covered by invisible buttons to move the experience to the next card. The next card would not necessarily make sense to the user. Here is a kludgy remedy. Start with an invisible button that covers the entire slide and link this button to the same slide. Instead of moving to the next card, clicking elsewhere on the slide will result in no change. The clicks trigges a link that takes the user to the same slide.
This is not a perfect solution as clicks on other objects that cover the all slide invisible button still move the experience to the next slide. This seems a problem that would be very tedious to fix. Perhaps changing the outline of the invisible button to something more visible would encourage willing users to click where their actions would take anticipated consequences. Not exactly the kind of expectation good designers tend to make.
This project was intended mostly as a proof of concept encouraging others to explore with slide-based systems (e.g, Google slides, PowerPoint) and see what atypical applications are possible. The example I use here is unusual, but this technique of using multiple objects to control links to multiple slides is a technique suited to many applications.
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