Well Hello Adobe and Thank You For Coming To Our Room!

Being a teacher with pretty tech savvy 5th graders means I am constantly on the look out for ideas of how to integrate technology into our lessons.  And while I do love technology, I never want to integrate it just for the sake of the tool, but rather to ensure a deeper level of exploration and inquiry for my students.  We use Flip video cameras quite a bit in our room whether to record our learning, create video projects, or even make presentations for other students.  Yet whenever we had recorded footage we always ran into a major obstacle; no editing software other than Flipshare or Windows Movie Maker.  And sure these programs work alright, they just are not that kid friendly and definitely not up to what our students want to create.  So when Adobe contacted me and wanted to know if I would be interested in trying out some of their software for them and then review it, I jumped at the chance.  Maybe, just maybe, their Premier Elements software is exactly what we have been looking for.

So I told my students about this opportunity and they got as excited as I did.  I am in constant awe of their fearlessness of new technology.  Talk about a huge lesson we as teachers should learn!  Yesterday the software was finally installed on my computer at school thanks to my awesome tech integrator Linda and I cannot wait to have the students use it.  So far the first project we will use the software for will be creating 5th grade survival videos for the incoming 4th graders as a way of working on our script writing and fluency/expression.  I cannot wait to share our honest opinion about the Adobe software and how it worked in the hands of my talented 5th graders.

So from time to time, you may see a post about Adobe and as always it will feature my unbiased opinion – or even better, that of my students. I am as curious as many other elementary educators whether Adobe software can be used at our level, so there will be no holds barred when it comes to reviews.  For now, if you already have access to Adobe software at your school, do check out the Adobe Education Exchange; super great resource for ways to integrate their technology created by other teachers.  I have been exploring it and finding it easy to access and search for grade specific resources.