Integrate a Creative Curriculum on Adobe Spark + Canvas LMS

The Adobe for Education team was excited to take part in InstructureCon21 and see how educators are innovating to design high-impact learning experiences for their students. 

At Adobe, we believe that the best learning experiences involve creativity. Soft skills like creativity, creative problem-solving, and creative communication really help students succeed — both in school and in the workforce. In fact, LinkedIn recently reported that creativity is the #1 soft skill employers need. 

Adobe’s creative apps help students develop these skills as they create images, designs, websites, videos, and other media to tell their stories, express their ideas, and demonstrate their learning. And the apps integrate with Canvas LMS, so it’s easy for students and teachers to access them and make them part of their everyday work.

In our session at InstructureCon21, we welcomed Katie Fielding, a former high school science teacher who is now an instructional technology coach at Woodbridge Senior High School in Prince William County, Virginia. Katie shared some simple and inspiring ideas for how educators can integrate creativity into any course or subject using Adobe apps.

Building Essential Skills Through Visual Design 

Adobe Spark apps are easy-to-use visual design tools that help students unleash their creativity, develop creative communication skills, and learn to synthesize and articulate core takeaways from their learning. As Katie said, “Instructors are designers of educational experiences, and Adobe Spark allows them to design experiences that are authentic and engaging for students.” 

She demonstrated the three Adobe Spark apps and offered examples of how educators can use them to bring out students’ creativity:

• Adobe Spark Page enables students to design visually rich web pages that feature a mix of text and imagery. Katie said she’s found that Adobe Spark Page is ideal for essays, lab reports, book reports, field reports, newsletters, portfolios, and other text-heavy projects that also feature images and videos. She also pointed out that the app includes safe search for images and videos, so students can quickly find classroom-friendly content to enhance their projects.
• Adobe Spark Video empowers students to produce short videos that include voiceover narration, music, themes, and images. Katie recommended having students use the app to create public service announcements, commercials, poetry projects, lab reports, and storytelling projects of all kinds.  
• Adobe Spark Post gives students the tools to create infographics, posters, vision boards, and more by bringing together stylized text and images. Katie suggested that students use the app to create promotional materials for their clubs and teams, biographical selfies for historical figures, “3 things about me” posters, and much more.

For additional ideas, Katie recommended checking out the Adobe Education Exchange — our free portal that offers full lesson plans and assignments for every subject area and grade level, including lessons created in collaboration with Khan Academy and Pixar.

Integrating Adobe Creative Apps with Canvas

Katie also noted that both Adobe Spark and Adobe Creative Cloud integrate with Canvas to provide a seamless experience for educators and students alike. At schools that have Adobe Spark licenses, students and teachers can access Adobe Spark right from Canvas. Teachers can share templates with students, create assignments and add rubrics to them, view student work in folders, and easily make comments in Canvas Speedgrader. Students can make copies of assignments, open them directly in Adobe Spark and start working, and then turn them in. And at schools that have Creative Cloud licenses, students can access and launch their Creative Cloud apps right from Canvas. 

Getting Started with Adobe Spark at Your School

If you’re interested in providing your students with free Adobe Spark tools, check out our Adobe Spark for Education page to see how. Once you integrate Adobe Spark into Canvas, your students will have powerful creative communication tools right at their fingertips, whether they’re working in the classroom or at home.