Adobe Spark has been my “go-to” tool for English Language Learners to write and display online their written work. Their videos, accompanied by music, are very engaging.

However, it might have competition now that I learned about Commaful from Nik Peachey.

Commaful lets you simply and easily create online slideshows of your writing, with the text accompanied by easily search-for and selected photos, videos or GIFs. Then, you can link to or embed your creation.

It doesn’t have music, unlike Adobe Spark, and the photo selection does not appear to be as robust. However, Commaful does have one huge advantage over Adobe Spark – you can create your stories without registering or logging-in. That is indeed a huge advantage, as any teacher will tell you.

Of course, another disadvantage is it’s unclear what kind of standards are maintained for Commaful’s content. I didn’t see anything inappropriate in a quick search, but who knows?

One other minor inconvenience with Commaful – after I embedded by five second creation below (it’s only two slides, but you can make ones with many, many more) and clicked on it here, I got a pop-up inviting me to register at the site to read stories. However, if you click it to go away, you can then continue to read the embedded story.

I’m adding this to The Best Places Where Students Can Write Online,

I might add it to The “All-Time” Best 2.0 Tools For Beginning English Language Learners if it works out well in school.

anon / Commaful