For students who might already have an Adobe ID, it easy to log in to Slate, but it's also simple to create a brand-new account just to use this app. Use this app as a presentation tool for more image-heavy projects that will require students to thoughtfully order imagery to tell a story. Or have students with an all-text story use the search features to find appealing images to illustrate it. Consider sharing presentations with the class by projecting an iPad on a projector in your classroom or viewing a presentation from the Web.
Continue readingEditor's Note: Adobe Slate is now part of Adobe Spark.
Adobe Slate is a visual presentation and storytelling tool for the Web and iOS. First, create a free Adobe ID, then log in to start creating a "visual story" or presentation featuring text, images, and links. Users can import images from their device's camera roll, Dropbox, or Lightroom, or they can take a picture on the spot. Meanwhile, users can also search the Adobe Creative Cloud to add Creative Commons-licensed images to a presentation. There's a choice of themes (with names such as "Vintage" and "Whimsy") that customize the presentation's font, borders, and filters. Once finished, users can share presentations to the Web (publicly or privately) or via email, social media, or SMS.
Adobe Slate is a simple, super-fast way to make a visually appealing presentation. There aren't a ton of features (yet), so it's not likely to be your go-to tool for creating in-class presentations. The standout, though, is the ability to search Creative Commons images. Not everyone is a gifted photographer, and it can be nice to have so many high-quality photos to choose from to illustrate a story. It's also nice that there are so many ways to share your presentation -- it's great that you can save it to the Web and save it locally to an iPad. It's also nice that you can save to the Web both publicly and privately, so students can back up their work without sharing it widely.
Some more structured demo help within the app would help. As it is, it's not always clear what all the functions do, and it takes some exploring to sort out which button does what. A walkthrough upon first launch would be a welcome addition. It would also be nice if users had to opt in rather than opt out of data collection on usage. Overall, though, this is a cool tool for digital storytelling, and it's free, so it's certainly worth a look.