What does it mean to truly engage students in a world shaped by multimodal communication, generative AI, and growing demands for transferable skills? In our recent webinar, Create. Engage. Inspire: Leveraging Adobe Express, Firefly, and Beyond, faculty from across UTA explored this question with Adobe’s Todd Taylor, Pedagogical Evangelist and longtime English professor.
Watch the full webinar recording here:
What We Covered
In this session, Todd Taylor and Steven Watson from Adobe introduced UTA’s growing Adobe Creative Campus initiative and focused on Adobe Express, an accessible and powerful creative platform that makes it easy for instructors and students to build infographics, portfolios, posters, presentations, podcasts, and more. Paired with Adobe Firefly, Adobe’s generative AI tool, Express becomes a gateway to authentic, inclusive, and scalable learning experiences.
Key Takeaways
- Start with Aspiration, Not Tech. Todd opened by asking participants to share aspirations for their courses—not tech goals, but educational ones. These included increasing student agency, shifting from product to process, and creating learning that connects to real-world futures.
- Authentic Assessment Made Easy. Through Adobe Express and Firefly, instructors can move beyond traditional tests and papers toward projects that showcase student voice, creativity, and skill. Think: infographics that replace final essays or portfolios that tell a student’s professional story.
- Plug-and-Play Resources Are Here. Todd shared a “leave-behind library” of remixable templates, models, and assignments for Express projects like research posters, dynamic portfolios, and presentations. Bonus: These will soon be available as plug-in modules in Canvas, complete with tutorials and microcredential options.
- Adobe Tools Support Accessibility and AI Literacy. Adobe Express includes built-in accessibility checkers, alt-text tools, and ethical AI features. Firefly’s image generation respects copyright, offering a safe way to bring generative AI into the classroom while sparking teachable moments on intellectual property and design ethics.
- It Scales! Whether you’re teaching a class of 25 or 250, Adobe tools can support smaller activities like “vision boards” or more robust podcast, video, or group presentation projects, all within the Express platform.
Want to Get Started?
Here are the resources shared in the webinar to help you dive in:
- Content Authenticity: www.contentauthenticity.org (a movement that Adobe started with consideration for respecting intellectual property and building content provenance details)
Final Thoughts
As Todd reminded us, authentic assessment is about students creating something they want to put on a résumé, something they’re proud of. With Adobe Express and Firefly, those opportunities are just a few clicks away.
Join the Conversation
We’d love to hear from you! How are you using Adobe tools like Adobe Express or Adobe Firefly in your teaching, course design, or student engagement strategies? What opportunities—or challenges—do you see in adopting authentic, multimodal assessment practices? Share your thoughts, questions, and experiences in the comments below. Let’s keep the conversation going!