What is Adobe Creative Campus and what does it mean for Carleton College?

Carleton College is the first higher education institution in Minnesota to join Adobe Creative Campus. Adobe Creative Campus provides resources and community to foster digital literacy, access, and equity for students. All students, faculty, and staff have access to Adobe Express, Adobe’s web-based creativity tool, while Adobe Creative Cloud applications, including Adobe Acrobat Professional, are available for specific courses and tasks. Carleton students can benefit from the Adobe Creative Skills series with online, self-paced courses and official badges that can be added to resumes or Linkedin profiles. In addition, they can claim a full Adobe Creative Cloud license for up to 6 months after graduation. Adobe’s Student Ambassador program creates learning and networking opportunites for students.

How do I and my students get access to Adobe Express?

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At this moment in time (December 2024), anyone at Carleton can access Adobe Express if they have an Adobe ID. Check with Activate a License for Adobe Express to see which path you can take.

What about the other Adobe Creative Cloud applications?

Carleton has a limited number of Creative Cloud licenses that you can either access through one of the public computer labs or request as part of your work or your class (faculty can request an Adobe CC license for their entire class).

How could Adobe Express be useful for my work and my students’ work?

Adobe Express is a web-based application for the creation of simple web pages, infographics, flyers and brochures, images, presentations, and other documents with graphic components. Baked into Adobe Express is Adobe Firefly, the generative AI that is trained on Adobe stock images only, making it easier to realize images and edit photos. Consider using Adobe Express for flyers or brochures for student organization events, web pages for smaller projects, or simply image creation for use in other places. Adobe Express does feel similar to at least one other popular tool out there, Canva. Here is one comparison.

Adobe provides guides for using Express effectively, with an eye towards innovation. Here are some other ideas (with the help of Claude). If you are faculty or staff, consider using Adobe Express for

  • Content creation: The webpage, presentation, or image creation tools can help.
  • Research visualization: The infographics templates may help with making research data more accessible to the public.
  • Digital storytelling: The different tool options allow flexibility for creating digital content, including assignments that give students choices on how to present their knowledge and skills.
  • Template creation: The templates can help guide students through assignments and tasks.
  • Editing of pdf files: Import pdf files and edit them in Adobe Express.

If you are a student, consider using Adobe Express for

  • EPortfolio: The webpage option allows for a simple ePortfolio that showcases in creative ways who you are, what you want the world to know about you. (Guidance on ePortfolio design)
  • Multimedia assets for assignments: The different elements in Express give you choices on how you want to present what you have learned.
  • Collaboration: Because Adobe Express is web-based, you can share and collaborate your projects with others to invite collaboration.

Adobe Express tools have built-in accessibility tools so that you can add alternate text for your images, ensure color contrast, and give choices to students for assignment completion. Express can also help empower students because the creative tools give users choices to tell their stories.

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