ACE August Share Out 🎉

Hello ACE Community! ✨

Can you feel it? That first-week-of-school buzz is back. Fresh notebooks, freshly decorated classrooms, name and locker tags that haven't been colored on yet.

Last month, we let creativity stretch out into summer mode, carrying our end-of-year reflection activities into slower, sunnier days. This month, the energy flips completely. It's launch time. New rosters, new routines, and a whole lot of "who are you, and what's your story?" So we're kicking off the year with a playlist built for exactly that.

The Creative Kick Off is Here 🎉

New school year, new energy, and this one comes with a stacked lineup of Guided Activities to help you and your students start strong in Adobe Express. We're calling it The Creative Kick Off: a whole playlist built for the first weeks of school, packed with icebreakers, "get to know you" projects, and a few playful character-building activities that make a great first impression for your classroom community.

➡️ Explore the playlist here: adobe.ly/creativekickoffB2S

One brand new addition this year:

🎬 Customize an Animated Introduction (New!) — Students build a personalized "Meet Me" profile in a layered, scrapbook-style collage, combining text, photos, stickers, and design elements to tell their story, then bring it to life with animation and their own voice. It's personal storytelling with a creative twist, and a fantastic showcase piece for a Classroom Gallery.
➡️ Try it here: adobe.ly/animatedintroB2S  

🖐️ Design a Class Culture Poster
Students design a poster that captures the values, characteristics, and identity of your classroom community — think bold, typography-driven statements like "We Are Inclusive, Creative, Resourceful..." This one's a great whole-class kickoff: build it together and hang the result as a visual reminder of who you are as a group all year long.
Alongside it, you'll find refreshed favorites built for icebreakers, identity, and community-building, all designed to help students feel seen and known from day one.
➡️ Try it here: adobe.ly/classposterB2S 

Why This Matters

The first few weeks set the tone for the rest of the year. When students get to introduce themselves creatively instead of just filling out an index card, they:

• Practice telling their own story with confidence, right from day one
• Build comfort with Adobe Express tools before diving into heavier assignments
• Start forming a classroom identity that feels collaborative, not just assigned
• Give you (the educator) a genuine window into who they are, beyond a name and a grade

It's a small investment of class time that pays off in classroom culture all year long.

Updated Refreshed Home Tiles 🎨

Back in June, ACE Innovators gave feedback about visual tiles on the Adobe Express for Education homepage. The team took that feedback seriously, and the refresh just shipped.

The new tiles give a cleaner, more consistent visual style across the homepage, while still giving each activity its own unique art so students and educators can quickly spot the one they're looking for. You'll see it across the new Teach, Create, and Edit tabs that make it faster to jump straight to generating classroom activities, starting a design, or editing an existing file.

If you don't see it yet, try logging out and back in to refresh your view.

➡️ Give it a look next time you're in Adobe Express for Education.
 

Fresh Tools Worth a Look 🛠️

A few things landed recently that are worth a second glance if you haven't explored them yet:

• Comic Creator is now available globally. Students enter a topic, choose a comic type (open-ended, problem-solution, process, or story), cast their characters, and pick a visual style before AI brings it to life. A great way to turn a "Meet Me" into a full origin-story comic strip. We love seeing what you create so be sure to use the #AdobeComics and #AdobeEduCreative when posting. Make your next comic here ➡️ https://adobe.ly/comiccreator
• Animated Video Maker. Turns a script or storyboard into a fully animated video, complete with characters, motion, and voice, no animation experience required. It's a great next step after Comic Creator. The perfect hook and attention getter. Perfect for flipped classrooms, tricky concepts across Science, Math, ELA, and Social Studies, or supporting ELL and neurodiverse students with combined visual and audio learning. And you're never out of control. Every scene's script and visuals can be reviewed and edited before it goes anywhere near your class. Action ➡️ adobe.ly/animatedvideomaker 

  

  Check out Claudio’s post sharing about making one and 8/8 tentacles to ACE Innovator Brian Lopez’s use teaching about octopi! 🐙

• Generate Activity makes it easy to generate a quick, relevant creative exercise for your class in just a couple of clicks, perfect for those days you need something ready fast.

• Public Galleries give students and educators a way to showcase creative work more broadly.
• Multi Class Assignment Creation is finally here! A massive YAWL shared about in this post. You can now assign the same activity to up to 5 classrooms at once instead of repeating the process one class at a time. Special thanks to educators in Broward School District in Florida, many educators in Texas, and Michael House who submitted for upvoting! 🙌 The voice of our Adobe Creative Educator Community is amazing!

  

   

• YAWL just got easier. Right inside Adobe Express for Education, you can now submit an idea, share feedback, or jump straight into the Community, all in one place. Keep the "I wish Adobe could…" ideas coming. Your feedback keeps shaping what comes next. We love creating with students and educators!

  

   

Community Connections ❤️

A few things happened over the last two months that are worth celebrating:

ACE Community Spotlight launched. A new monthly space to pause and celebrate the educators, stories, and creativity happening across our community. Our very first feature is Dustin Rimmey, who teaches US History and World History and writes about creativity and thinking routines over at teacher's plAIground. If you've caught him at ISTE, TCEA, or AMLE, you know his work. Meet and read about Dustin in our Community Spotlight.

The Adobe Education Summit wrapped with the theme "Your Story Matters." Educators from around the world shared reflections on student agency, creative confidence, and genuine co-creation. If you missed the recaps in the community, they're worth a read. Michael Fegan has our Featured Educator Post sharing a beautiful reflection.

ISTE was electric. From the Adobe booth to sessions led by ACE Innovators and Leaders, student voice took center stage this year with our Adobe Student Ambassadors representing everything from middle school to higher education! 

The ACE Leader Community officially opened its doors. A space built for educators who see creativity as more than something they teach. If you haven't joined yet, it's worth a look. Share http://adobe.ly/joinaceleader with your school community as it’s always #BetterTogether with friends and colleagues! 

Classroom Idea Sparks for August

Between the first bell and settling into routines, here are a few remixable ideas to spark something in your classroom or library this month.

First Days of School

• Design a Classroom Norms Poster: Students collaborate on a visual set of shared values or expectations for the year ahead.
• Create a "This Year I Will" Vision Card: Students design a personal goal-setting card to revisit throughout the year.
• Build a Locker or Desk Nameplate: A quick, low-stakes way for students to personalize their space and practice the tools early.

Women's Equality Day (August 26)

• Build a Trailblazer Tribute Carousel: Students design a social-style carousel honoring women who shaped history, science, art, or their own communities.

Rock Paper Scissors Day (August 27)

• Design a Character Showdown Comic: Using Comic Creator, students pit two characters against each other in a playful rock-paper-scissors-style standoff, a fun low-stakes way to try the tool for the first time.

Toasted Marshmallow Day (August 30)

• Design a "Someday Board": Students create a vision board of goals, dreams, and milestones they're aiming for this year, in school and beyond.
• Build a "Future Me" Postcard: Students design a postcard addressed to themselves at the end of the school year, describing the goals they hope to have reached.

Looking Ahead to September

A few dates worth planning for now, while you've still got some breathing room before the month gets busy:

International Day of Charity (September 5)

• Create a Kindness Campaign Flyer: Students design a flyer promoting a class or school service project, big or small.

International Literacy Day (September 8)

• 📚 Create a Book Cover (Updated!)

  Students design a professional-looking book cover for a story of their choosing — real or invented — capturing its theme, genre, and mood through imagery and typography. A fun one to pair with an "about the author" bio for a quick creative-writing tie-in.

  Design Focus: Visual storytelling through title treatment, imagery, color, and composition.
  Skills: Generating images, typography, background generation, layout and composition.
  ➡️ Try it here: adobe.ly/bookcoverB2S  

  

   

• Build a Class Reading Recommendation Carousel: Students design a slide-style carousel recommending their favorite reads to classmates.

International Dot Day (September 15)

• Make Your Mark: Inspired by Peter H. Reynolds' The Dot, students start with a single shape or mark and build an entire design around it. A great low-pressure way to introduce a new class to Adobe Express tools while celebrating creative courage.

Join the Conversation

We'd love to hear how your school year is going, and this community forum is the place to bring it. Whether it's a quick question, a proud moment, or something you're still figuring out, post it here. Someone else in this community has likely been exactly where you are. We are all on the same journey, maybe just in different places. 🧭

Drop into the forum and share:

• Questions: Stuck on a feature, unsure how to roll out a new activity, or just want a second opinion? Ask here. Chances are someone's already solved it.
• Student Impacts: We want to see students in action and Galleries! Student "Meet Me" creations, comics, or introductions from the Creative Kick Off. How the new Multi Class Assignment feature is saving you time. Any moment where you saw a student light up.
• Plans: What you're building toward this semester, an idea you want feedback on before you try it, or how you're thinking about using the September dates above.
• Celebrations: Reflections, a win from your first weeks back, or just something worth marking down before it gets lost in the busyness of the year.

Whether you're diving into the full Creative Kick Off playlist, trying Comic Creator for the first time, or just figuring out where the coffee machine is in your building again, your work keeps inspiring educators across our global community. Post it here, we're all reading.

Here's to new rosters, fresh starts, and every story about to be told. 🎉

Your Adobe for Education Community Team ❤️