Maine Richardson's Blog: AI Tools Inside Adobe Express and Canva for Teachers

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

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Two of the most useful AI art creation tools are Canva and Adobe Express for Educators. Amy Storer is an expert in both of them. On today's show, she takes a look at what is useful, what teachers are talking about, and how she helps them use these tools in the classroom. Both of these are definite candidates for first-week projects for kids of all ages. Adobe Express has some cool templates, as does Canva, that you can use to get to know your students. I believe the best way to start a school year is to build that relationship with your students and get to know them better. “About me” projects are a great way to do that.

Amy Storer is an Innovative Learning Specialist and respected speaker in Montgomery ISD who is passionate about empowering educators through purposeful technology integration. She thrives on partnering with educators to enhance the great learning already happening in their classrooms and schools by leveraging powerful digital tools.

Amy is a certified educator and trainer for Google, Microsoft, Adobe Express, and Canva, and she brings energy, expertise, and heart to every professional learning experience. Her work centers on meaningful PD, authentic classroom connections, and innovative strategies that make learning stick.

Connect with Amy: LinkedIn · X/Twitter @techamys · Instagram @techamys · TikTok @techamys

Other Shows for Teachers Exploring AI and Creative Tools

If Amy's toolkit sparked ideas, keep going:

Heart First, Tools Second: How to Teach and Use Tech in Today's World — a longer version of this conversation with Amy, alongside other educators, on Cool Cat Teacher Talk, my radio and TV show.
10+ Ways to Use Adobe Express in the Classroom — more classroom-ready ideas for the tool on a previous show.

If this episode helped you, please leave a rating and review wherever you listen — it helps more teachers find the show.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki

Click to read the full transcript

Vicki Davis: It's Fab Idea Friday. Pick an AI art tool to use with your students. Adobe Express and Canva — that we talk about in today's show — do more than you think, and you'll get lots of ideas. But here's why I'd start with Adobe Express. Most AI image tools learned by scraping the internet — somebody's art taken without asking. Adobe trained Firefly on licensed and public domain work instead. It's not spotless — some of that training data turned out to be AI-generated itself — but Adobe will at least tell you where the model learned to draw. And that's the question, isn't it? Not what can this make, but where did it learn? Let's talk to Amy Storer.

Announcer: This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis: Amy Storer is an innovative learning specialist in Montgomery ISD in Texas. She's a nationally recognized ed tech speaker whose work centers on purposeful technology integration that makes teaching and learning easier, more creative, and authentic. She is known for Coaching That Clicks. Amy, thanks for coming on the show — welcome.

Amy Storer: Thanks for having me.

Vicki Davis: Today we are going to talk about all the tools that have teachers excited, whether they're new or old. I know you do training on all of these — but what are teachers getting the most excited about that you're sharing these days, Amy?

Amy Storer: A big part of my job is working directly with teachers. Each month, I come with a theme or a topic. One month it was all about Canva; this month, February, is all about falling in love with Adobe Express and diving into that tool as teachers and students. One of the tools I've been sharing is one of their newest, and it's Create a Podcast. It is a professional, studio-style podcast experience for students. I introduced it to a third-grade teacher last week — she used it within two days. The animated character feature in Adobe is another great one too, but the podcast is now a button that kids and teachers can click on the Adobe Express homepage. It's a blue button. You can do things like add intro music — they have an entire music library — and you can even invite people onto your show. All of that you can do in that one tab. And even better — let's say the kids are recording in a busy hallway at school, which happened last week with these kids — you can then click the Enhance button and drown out that background noise and make your voice cleaner and crisper. It's just the one-stop shop.

Vicki Davis: But the thing about Adobe Podcast when it came out — oh my goodness, the audio cleanup feature is so great. They've actually built that into Adobe Premiere Pro, which is what I use to produce the radio and TV version of this show. [Kip, my husband and the show's original producer] would spend just 30 minutes doing all the settings and all the manual cleanup, and now it's like we hit a button and it's done. The quality that comes out of Adobe Podcast is truly remarkable. But the other thing is, it's so easy. The only problem I've ever had in my classroom is if people don't make sure their mic is allowed in Chrome. But if that's the only thing, that's a big win. What kinds of podcasts did the third-grade students record?

Amy Storer: One little girl was trying it out and she was interviewing a parent who was there, talking about Valentine's Day — favorite things about Valentine's, types of candy you like. She had another student who came up with a name; it was called “Ruffin' Time.” Some other teachers I've visited with were thinking about using it for kids to interview each other, to talk about topics or concepts. For example, the fourth-grade kids are learning about continents right now, and another teacher was going to pair up kids to interview each other about what they know about continents. Just another way for kids to show what they know that's not a traditional pen-and-paper task. It sounds cheesy, but the possibilities are endless with the different things you can do — book studies, interviewing people in different fields. I'm just so excited to keep working with teachers when it comes to this, because I could see so many things that could benefit kids.

Vicki Davis: Oh, my kids love Adobe Express too. What do your teachers say about Adobe Express, and what are the features they really like in there?

Amy Storer: Animated Character. It's a very easy lift for even your littlest students. They get up to two minutes to record, which is just enough time to share what you need to share. What it does is take the recording of the students, and the character's mouth will move in sync with that recording. We did an animated Valentine card — that's a really neat one. I've seen teachers use it for different GT projects. I've worked with teachers in Houston where they created a hybrid animal for a GT project — for example, it was an otter and a butterfly, the “otterfly.” And you can use that same feature in the designer and in the character's mouth: you would add a mouth with a transparent background. The Quick Actions for teachers have been really popular too — to do things like edit a PDF or merge documents together, some of those really simple tasks that teachers are having to go to multiple websites to do. You could do it all inside Adobe Express. And I'm team anything that saves teachers time.

Vicki Davis: My students really, really like Adobe Express. So, okay — teachers are getting excited about Adobe Podcast, Adobe Express, all those little cool things. What else? Because you have a big toolkit.

Amy Storer: Canva Code. The first time I used it, I was beside myself with how much time it saved me — and that it was going to be interactive and engaging for students. So if it's not something you're familiar with: Canva Code, you don't have to know anything about coding, less than zero. But you think about your dream interactivity that you want to build with students. For me — I'm a science teacher — we're studying food chains. To wrap up our unit and assess my kids, I want them to play a game where they're organizing organisms into buckets — producer, consumer, et cetera — to give them instant feedback. I don't have time, I don't have money to build it or pay for it. This is where Canva Code comes in. So on the Canva website, there's a Canva AI button, top center. Click Canva AI, and you'll see another button that says Code, and you just copy and paste in. Maybe you've leaned into AI to help you come up with your prompt. Once you have everything there, you click the button to generate it. When I'm presenting on this, my sister thinks I sound so silly, but when it starts to run and build, I always say, “Look, Ma, no hands!” It's writing all those lines of code for me. And even better — once it's done writing the code for that interactivity, I can keep talking to it: “I forgot to add a spot for a student to put their ID number.” I just found out at TCEA, not too long ago, that you could ask it to put a Spanish toggle button, and it will translate the interactivity.

Vicki Davis: Anything else about Canva that your teachers are going, “Oh yeah, this is awesome”?

Amy Storer: Their Magic Studio. When you're in the designer and you are designing presentations or graphics, on the left-hand side, that panel — there's the Magic Studio. It has things like remove background, generate background, things like that.

Vicki Davis: So we've got all this Adobe stuff, all this Canva stuff.

Amy Storer: What else? Another tip I found out recently: if you're in presentation mode in Canva and you click any number on your keyboard, it will pull up a timer overlay on top of that presentation. I was like, I did not know that.

Vicki Davis: And I push, like, seven and it gives me a seven-minute timer, or one and it gives me a one-minute. Wow. Now that is cool.

Amy Storer: So when I was at TCEA, one of the tools — Scribe, S-C-R-I-B-E. What Scribe does is it's an extension you put on your computer. When you turn the extension on, a side panel pops up, and what it's doing is recording everywhere that you click. When you're done capturing the steps, you click Stop Capture. A new tab will open and it's the steps from start to finish — but not just the steps. They have grabbed screenshots, and wherever you have clicked, they have added a hotspot. So it will say, “Number one, go to the Google Slide link.” Teachers would click that, and when they get there, it shows them a picture: “You're going to click here, click here.” I call it like a how-to flowchart from start to finish. I just made one for families recently on how to get into ClassLink and get to different apps for students. It's good for sharing instructions with teachers. It's one of my favorite tools to share and use.

Vicki Davis: You've given us a lot of tools. Let's just shift it a little bit. How are teachers feeling these days with all the AI that's happening? What's the mood? What are teachers saying to you about their struggles or their excitement?

Amy Storer: I think it's a mix. Many are leaning into it — how it can support them, support teachers — which is how I started. It was teacher-facing for me, and still a lot of what I do is teacher-facing. I think the older the kids get, the more worry teachers and families do have if AI is helping or hurting with student learning. I really firmly believe that once our teachers get more comfortable with it and have used it and can understand how it can support, not replace, I think that's going to help. But I do think it's a good mix, understandably.

Vicki Davis: As we finish up — talk to educators who feel overwhelmed, who feel stressed. Just give some encouragement.

Amy Storer: I'm saying things that sound easier said than done, but: you've got this. You are a professional. You know what to do to support your students. I know at times it can feel as if all of these different apps and tech ideas are coming at you. Do you have to do all the things? No. You do what works best for your students. Pick up one tool. Pick up one tool, use it the entire school year, get really good at that tool, put it in your toolbox — and maybe next school year, pick up a new one. You do not have to do all the things. You find what works best for you and your students. At the end of the day, if you're supporting our kids, they're learning, they're engaged, they're creating — not just consuming — then you're doing it.

Vicki Davis: So Amy Storer has been with us today. She's a learning specialist in Montgomery ISD in Texas and a nationally recognized ed tech speaker here in the US. I appreciate all these tips — you taught me some new ones. I'm really excited to go try those, and thanks for being encouraging. It was really awesome to spend time with you.

Amy Storer: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Vicki Davis: Thanks for tuning in to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com/newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.