Texas school district helps students develop career-ready skills with generative AI and Adobe Express
Humble Independent School District (ISD) began as a one-room schoolhouse near Humble, Texas more than 100 years ago. Today, with 48 campuses, 48,000 students, and over 7,000 employees, the district embraces technology to empower students with skills they will need for success. Realizing that their students will need creative and generative AI skills to succeed, Humble educators have incorporated Adobe Express and Firefly in their curriculum.
Shelly Veron, coordinator of Digital Design and Innovation, Humble ISD, believes creative technology has potential to help all students reach academic learning standards because it gives students more ways to express themselves and demonstrate understanding of academic topics. In addition to writing an essay to express their ideas, students can also create an infographic, record a video or podcast, or design a poster to supplement their themes.
Adobe Express has become a top choice among Humble ISD teachers to foster learning, critical thinking, and communication skills. The digital platform combines the best features from Adobe creative tools and Firefly generative AI with an extremely user-friendly user interface.
“Technology can be the magic that makes a difference in the classroom,” says Veron. “Our vision is to keep it accessible and practical. Adobe Express is easy to use for both students and teachers, which makes it a powerful tool for bringing more creativity and student voices into classrooms across the district.”
Over the past two years, the district trained more than 400 educators to use Adobe Express, with an 85 percent year-over-year growth in monthly active users. During the past school year, more than 3,000 students created an average of 1,800 projects every month, for a total of 17,000 student projects during the school year.
Building confidence through career-ready skills
The Digital Design and Innovation team sponsored a district-wide Digital Citizenship Bookmark contest to promote important life skills. Students of all ages were invited to use an Adobe Express template to create a bookmark that promotes digital citizenship, such as treating others kindly or using technology responsibly. The contest encouraged students to think about different aspects of digital citizenship and how it impacts their lives, while also practicing their technical and design skills. Nearly 300 students submitted designs, with four winners receiving 100 printed copies each of their bookmark to share with family and classmates.
Kathryn Hofmann, a STEM lab specialist at Timbers Elementary School, introduced the bookmark contest to familiarize her students with Adobe Express, an app that they could use in the future for academic or professional work. Students worked with templates with pre-selected colors, fonts, and graphics or customized their template by searching through the free Adobe Express assets.
“Adobe Express is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy to introduce students to creative technology and design concepts,” Hofmann said.
Elijah “E.J.” McNeal, 5th Grade, Maplebrook Elementary
Jose Coria, 6th Grade, Humble Middle Schools.
Embracing generative AI to develop analysis and language skills
Shirley Fuller, graphic design and broadcasting teacher at Humble Middle School, likes Adobe Express for its simplicity, which allows students to flex their imaginations. As well, one of the features that makes Adobe Express stand out is its AI capabilities, which gives teachers new ways to incorporate language into a visual creative process.
For one assignment, students were challenged to create a portrait of a historical figure by describing that person in a Firefly generative AI prompt. Students had fun experimenting with different descriptive words that would give them a portrait of their chosen historical icon.
“Students built analytics skills while troubleshooting their prompts and learned to use new descriptive words to generate the image they wanted,” Fuller said. “Students were incredibly engaged, and they learned a lot. Generative AI offers a fresh approach to developing students’ skills.”
Rosa Parks Adobe Express project by Kamaira Bennett, 8th grade, Humble Middle School.
Leonardo da Vinci Adobe Express project by Dariel Noyola, 8th grade, Humble Middle School.
Bringing students into a virtual Adobe Express classroom
Emily Arnold, technology teacher at Maplebrook Elementary School, also found a way to incorporate AI and science into a creative assignment. She challenged students to create an imaginary animal by combining two animals from different animal groups, such as a mammal and an insect. Using Firefly generative AI in Adobe Express, students described their hybrid animals and created a magazine cover featuring their animal and three of its structures and functions.
“Adobe Express stands out from other platforms with its Classrooms feature, designed to streamline assignment creation and management for teachers directly from Google Classroom,” Arnold said. “I can assign projects integrated with Google Classroom, monitor student progress in real time, and access a gallery to showcase projects to the whole class. It’s a fantastic way to bring creative assignments into the classroom and empower students.”
Deerarfly Adobe Express project by Azara Redley, 5th Grade, Maplebrook Elementary School.
Buppy Adobe Express project by Allyson Pisio, 5th Grade, Maplebrook Elementary School.
Preparing middle school students for the future
Precus Glover, Digital Learning specialist for Humble ISD, helps students see technology as a tool for creating, not just consuming, unique content. While Glover works with students of all ages, she feels that middle school is when students are most creative, curious, and ready to explore their own identities — making it a prime time to get students engaged with creative apps.
Glover supported the district’s first Digital Creator Fest, where more than 100 students from nine middle schools explored podcasting, filmmaking, and coding. Students used Adobe Express to bring their ideas to life, designing podcast cover art, game graphics, and digital posters to create a strong visual identity that helped audiences understand the projects immediately. Working with Adobe Express made it easy for students to create professional-looking designs in minutes, letting them focus on storytelling rather than struggling with the technical aspects of creation.
“Adobe Express is the ultimate ‘no-barrier’ creativity tool,” Glover said. “It levels the playing field, so whether a student has years of design experience or is opening it for the first time, they can create something polished and shareable.”
2024 Digital Creator Fest.
Learn more about using Adobe Express for Education here.