The ISTE student standard for February is Computational Thinker: "Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions."
Adobe Education Exchange has a great series of short, self-paced "lightning learning" courses. Here is one on creating Infographics in Adobe Express.
One of the components of Computational Thinker standard is having students "collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them and represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision-making," so having students design infographics and analyze data can help them be more critical thinkers and better communicators!
In this bundle, there are six Express post shareable templates that you can edit and 3 other video and page ideas your students can build from scratch. Shareable templates are ways you can remix an existing project idea and make it your own without having to start from scratch. Shareable templates just require simply a “copy and share” of the link with students. When they open the link, it automatically copies and saves to their Adobe account upon login. Just click ‘Remix’, log in, and begin! This bundle has your virtual learning day needs covered.
This month's DTL theme is Innovative Designer. The Innovative Designer standard requires students to use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
Check out this video from Dr. John Spencer about the LAUNCH cycle, a K12 friendly approach to the design process.
L = Look, Listen, Learn
A = Ask TONS of questions
U = Understanding the process or problems through authentic research
N = Navigate ideas - brainstorm, analyze, and ideate solutions
C = Create a prototype
H = Highlight what's working and fix what's failing
Next time you have your students use the tools in the Adobe Creative Suite, have them go through the LAUNCH cycle to really dive deeper into the world of innovative design.
This month, instead of focusing on an ISTE standard, we are hosting the 12 days of Digimas, celebrating different ways we can use the Jordan Big 6 tech tools. To celebrate all things Adobe, here are 12 creative ways to use Adobe in your classroom:
12: 20 Minimalist Movie Poster Ideas (Blog Post) - Learn how to visualize and create your own minimalist movie poster with this guide, then get started on yours with hundreds of free customizable templates from Adobe Express.
10: Templates(Video) - Don't start from scratch! Save time this school year by using one of 1000s of templates in Adobe Express.
9: Your Year in Review (Express Challenge) - In this challenge, students and educators look back and reflect on this year's challenges and successes, then share their thoughts in Adobe Express.
8: Become an AI Whisperer (Blog Post) - With just a few simple words, you can harness the power of AI image generators and bring your wildest visual ideas to life.
7: How to spruce up your PDF in Adobe Express (Tutorial) - Just because PDFs are useful doesn’t mean they have to be boring. You can take all the features described in this post and apply them to creative efforts as well, further cracking open the wild world of PDFs.
5: Quick Check-In (Express Challenge) - In this challenge, educators and students create a poster with Adobe Express to help build their growth mindset and check-in on their successes.
1: Animate from Audio (Express Challenge) - In this challenge, students bring their projects to life using the Animate from Audio feature in Adobe Express.
This month's DTL theme is Knowledge Constructor. The Knowledge Constructor standard requires students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts, and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
Well, Adobe is perfect for producing creative artifacts. In fact, Adobe introduced some fun new features in Adobe Express - including a new drawing feature. Students can draw to their heart's content with over 50 different digital brushes - They can create with any color, or use exclusive Multicolor brushes to create with any combination of colors. (Ever paint with a rainbow? Now you can!) Students will also find decorative brushes to take their artwork to the next level with stars, foliage, patterns, hearts, and more.
One of the components of Computational Thinker standard is having students "collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them and represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision-making," so having students design infographics and analyze data can help them be more critical thinkers and better communicators!
