Massachusetts School Library Association
            MEMBER PORTAL                
​Join or Renew     Member Directory​
  • Home
  • About Us
    • MSLA Leadership 2022-23
    • Executive Board Meetings
    • Joint Statements: MLA, MassCUE
    • Spotlight Archive
    • Strategic Plan 2016-22
    • MSLA Constitution
  • Membership
    • Member Portal
    • Join or Renew Your Membership
    • Members Map
    • Email List
    • Regions >
      • Boston
      • Northeast
      • Metrowest
      • Southeast
      • Central
      • West
  • Conference
    • MSLA and PDPs
  • Resources
    • DESE Rubric
    • Certification & Licensure
    • Program Standards & Rubrics
    • Job Description: School Librarian
    • Job Listings
    • MLS Strategic Planning
    • Intellectual Freedom
  • Advocacy
    • MA School Library Study for Equity & Access
    • Everyday Advocacy
    • ESSA
    • Exemplary Programs
  • Newsletter
    • 2023 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • February 2023
    • 2022 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • February 2022
      • May 2022
      • October 2022
    • 2021 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • February 2021
      • May 2021
      • October 2021
    • 2020 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • February 2020
      • May 2020
      • October 2020
    • 2019 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • February 2019
      • May 2019
      • October 2019
    • 2018 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • February 2018
      • May 2018
      • October 2018
    • 2017 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • February 2017
      • May 2017
      • September 2017
      • October 2017
    • 2016 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • February 2016
      • May 2016
      • October 2016
    • 2015 MSLA Forum Issues >
      • April 2015
      • November 2015
    • MSLA Forum 2002-2013
  • Awards
    • Judi Paradis Memorial Grant
    • Archive: History of Awards
    • 2019 Awards Pictures
    • 2018 Awards Pictures
    • 2017 Awards Pictures
    • 2016 Awards Pictures
    • 2015 Awards Pictures
  • Bookmark Contest
    • 2023 Winners
    • 2022 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
    • 2019 and 2018 Winners
    • 2016 and 2017 Winners
    • 2012 to 2015 Winners
    • 2009 to 2011 Winners
    • 2004 to 2008 Winners
    • Bookmark Judges

Secondary Column: Sparking Collaboration with Language Teachers

10/8/2019

4 Comments

 
Jennifer Dimmick is a Library Teacher at Newton South High School
and the recipient of the 2019 MSLA Service Award.

As high school librarians we find that collaborating with History and English Language Arts teachers is a natural fit focused on research and reading/literature support and all that entails. But what about all of those other important subject areas? Couldn’t they benefit from our expertise too? Do they have to be doing research with their students to warrant coming to the library for a collaborative project? At Newton South High School we’ve learned that there are other ways to “hook” diverse subject area teachers on library learning, most often via instructional technology. In this column I’ll be focusing on one department and one technology: using Adobe Spark Video with World Language students to practice oral and written language skills while simultaneously sharpening digital presentation skills.

Adobe Spark Video is a free, online tool for creating animated video slideshows with background music and voice-over narration, resulting in a video that can be shared with a link, downloaded, or embedded on another site. Students can either create their own accounts or login with Google (our district is working to get the app added to our district Google Apps account but is struggling with the 13+ age restriction Adobe has in place at the moment). Students create individual slides much like PowerPoint or Google Slides, including text, images and icons. The tool includes a library of hundreds of royalty-free icons and images to choose from and automatically creates a “credits” slide at the end that lists credits for images and icons that come from the Adobe Spark library. These are not bibliographic citations, but at least there is acknowledgment of source material. Students can also upload their own images or those they find online, though we typically recommend that they avoid this to keep the project creation time manageable and to avoid the possibility of copyright infringement. The tool is designed to create relatively simple slides -- they don’t allow heavy text and only allow one or two images per slide. The look and feel of the slideshow is governed by the students’ choice of a limited number of in-built “themes” that dictate colors, fonts, sizes and design. We encourage students and teachers to think of these limitations as liberating, allowing them to focus more on the content/language skills they are developing than on the aesthetic details. The slideshows produced with this tool are attractive and professional looking.

World Language teachers like this tool because it allows them to create assignments that require students to practice speaking in the subject language by recording a narration for their slideshows. Over the past few years teachers have created a variety of assignments that not only include speaking practice, but also include requirements to use certain vocabulary words and practice using certain verb tenses. Some examples of recent assignments include:
  • My daily routine (“Mi rutina diaria”): students document their daily activities from waking in the morning to going to bed at night using a vocabulary list focused on hygiene, school activities and recreation. Sometimes teachers adapt the assignment “What I did yesterday” (“Ce que j’ai fait hier”) and require all verbs to be written in the past tense.​
  • A trip: students interview one another to learn about a recent trip they took and then create a slideshow describing the trip. Again vocabulary and verb tense requirements are incorporated.
  • ​How to video: students use images and narration to create a simple explainer video in the language they are studying. 

Library involvement consists of planning the assignment in advance with teachers, followed by two to three class sessions in the library to learn the tool, to create the slideshows, and to submit the final projects to their teachers. Library teachers or classroom teachers typically introduce the assignment by sharing some sample slideshows with students from prior years (when we first started with this we created our own sample slideshow for teachers to use, practicing our own rusty language skills!). Once the students have an idea of the expectations, teachers typically assign creation of a script or storyboard, either for homework or during a library class period. This is created before starting to use Adobe Spark. The script or storyboard is the outline for the slideshow that students will create, including the text, image types and narration language that they will have on each individual slide. Some teachers specify a minimum and/or maximum number of slides, and require students to turn their scripts in for grading and feedback before advancing to the next stage of the project.

The next visit to the library is focused on a short lesson on how to use Adobe Spark and then creation of the actual slideshow itself. This session focuses students on slide creation, including images and text, but not narration. The projects are dynamically saved in the cloud so the students can continue with narration in a final library session. When students come for their final visit we show them how to record their narration, which occurs individually for each slide, and can be re-recorded individually as well so that students can perfect their narration before exporting the final video. We try to reserve all of the quiet corners of the library for students to record in (study rooms, offices, even closets!). Finally, we help them submit their slideshows on the school’s Learning Management System.

We have created a research guide for these projects on our library website that includes a short tutorial video and some sample videos by students in various World Language classes, as well as tips and tricks for using Adobe Spark for these kinds of projects (e.g., how to use accents with Chromebooks and Adobe Spark, how to upload external images, etc.). The guide also includes a tutorial video for students and teachers demonstrating how to submit a project to our Learning Management System (Schoology). 

If you haven’t collaborated much with World Language teachers in the past, I would encourage you to try an Adobe Spark Video project with them, as it has a natural appeal for this audience. Hopefully, this will lead to more and deeper collaborations down the line -- it certainly has with us at Newton South! Feel free to share our libguide and samples with your teachers as inspiration.
4 Comments
Cathy Rosenstock
10/22/2019 03:29:13 pm

What a great tool! So engaging for students!

Reply
Jennifer Dimmick
11/14/2019 11:04:12 am

Right? Thanks for reading Cathy!

Reply
Sarah Woo
1/26/2020 06:53:29 pm

This sounds amazing. I would love to try it. But has your district found a solution to the 13+ age restriction and successfully added it to your Google Apps? It seems like that would be the way to go, but we would have the same issue year. Just wondering if you solved it.
Thanks.

Reply
Katherine Steiger
1/27/2020 08:38:42 am

Sarah, adding Spark into our Google Apps is on our district's wishlist -- but unfortunately it is nowhere near the top yet.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Forum Newsletter

    Co-Editors
    Reba Tierney and
    ​Luke Steere

    Reba is the School Librarian at Waltham High School; Luke is School Librarian at  Wilson Middle in Natick

    Click to set custom HTML

    Categories

    All
    AASL
    Academic
    Advocacy
    ALA
    Authors
    Book Bans
    Book Challenges
    Book Trailers
    Cataloging
    Censorship
    Column
    Conference
    Copyright
    Culture
    Databases
    Dewey
    Digital Citizenship
    E Books
    E-books
    Elementary
    ESSA
    Ethics
    Evaluation
    Graphic Books
    Graphic Novels
    Inquiry
    Leadership
    Learning Commons
    Legislation
    Literacy
    Maker Space
    Nonfiction
    Orientation
    Planning
    PLN
    President's Remarks
    Professional Development
    Reading
    Research
    Science
    Secondary
    Standards
    Technology
    Union
    Volunteers
    Weeding

    Archives

    February 2023
    October 2022
    May 2022
    February 2022
    October 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    October 2020
    May 2020
    February 2020
    October 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    October 2018
    May 2018
    February 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    October 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    April 2015

    MSLA Forum Past Issues:
    January 2015
    April 2015
    ​
    2002-2015 MSLA Forum
The Massachusetts School Library Association  works to ensure every school has a school library program that is fully integrated at all grade levels across the curriculum and has a significant and measurable impact on student achievement….Read more…..and Learn more about MSLA

Contact MSLA:
Emily Kristofek, Office Manager/Event Planner
P.O. Box 336. Wayland, MA 01778
ekristofek@maschoolibraries.org
​
508-276-1697 

Massachusetts School Library Association. All Rights Reserved.  Copyright 2023.