To help students succeed in a competitive job market, higher education leaders need to equip students with sought-after skills and ways to showcase them to employers.

Professor Justin Hodgson of Indiana University demonstrated how projects with integrated digital badges can help students articulate their learning and their career-ready skills, supplementing traditional degrees. By combining micro-credentialing with creative digital coursework, educators can help students stand out and land their dream jobs.

In this session, we discovered: 

• How digital badging programs provide a quick mechanism for students to cultivate real-world career skills
• How digital badging enhances student projects and offers success measures outside of traditional grades
• How badges and credentials can help hiring managers identify that students have both practical skills and growth mindsets
• How self-paced Adobe Express and Firefly badging and credentialing programs align with academic goals and workforce-ready skillsets to help students stand out

After years in learning environments that couldn't accommodate creative, unstructured, exploratory, or even hands-on learning experiences, many of today's college students arrive on campus with a hyper-focus on checklists and grades.

In this session, Indiana University's Professor Justin Hodgson shared how educators can build more meaningful learning experiences — even failure-friendly experiences — that focus on the joy of discovery and integrating digital fluency into the classroom. 

Our attendees learned:

• How to shift rote coursework to approaches like “ungrading” that prioritize conversations and the development of skills including creative problem-solving, critical thinking, and collaboration
• How to drive engagement with creative projects that challenge students to show what they know
• How students can use Adobe Express and Firefly to craft media they’ll be proud to share while becoming critical, ethical, and agile users of AI

In this session, our speakers taught innovative ways to assess your students’ work and comprehension more effectively than ever.

From "specs grading" to "ungrading," rubrics to reflection, Professor Justin Hodgson and undergraduate Mia Freeman (Neuroscience ’25) shared successful multi-modal approaches utilized at Indiana University, in which students across disciplines showcase their research, ideas, and insights in the form of creative digital media.

In this session, we discovered:

• How to get students to engage more deeply with their learning and think beyond checking boxes to get a grade
• How students can use Adobe Express with Firefly generative AI features to easily and ethically bring their ideas to life in web pages, videos, infographics, and more
• Reflective learning strategies that inspire students to articulate the key values of their work for diverse audiences
• Examples of real student projects and challenges around using them to assess learning
• Assessment strategies for evaluating innovative digital projects from a new perspective

Impactful Content Made Quick and Easy

In the digital age, visual communication and creative skills have become fundamental, enabling students to express themselves, engage with others, and make an impact. From videos and podcasts to blog posts and social media, the avenues for creative expression are endless. However, many students may feel daunted by the prospect of developing new content, unsure of where to start or how to refine their skills.

In this event, we discussed:

• The Power of Student Voice: Learned how empowering students to visually communicate fostered a sense of ownership and agency, amplifying their voices on diverse topics.
   
• Practical Tips and Techniques: Explored practical tips, techniques, and best practices for communicating across various mediums, including video production, podcasting, blogging, and social media.
   
• Engaging Learning Experiences: Discovered innovative approaches to integrate visual communication into the curriculum, creating engaging and meaningful learning experiences that fostered creativity, collaboration, and digital fluency (powered by Adobe Express + Firefly).
   
• Supporting Student Creativity with generative AI: Explored strategies for supporting and nurturing student creativity with generative AI tools, including mentorship, peer collaboration, and feedback mechanisms that encouraged experimentation and growth.

Empowering Every Student’s Creative Potential

In today's dynamic world, creativity is not just a luxury reserved for a select few. It’s a necessity for innovation, problem-solving, and personal fulfillment for all students. In this webinar, we explored how creativity played a critical role in student success while they were in school and when they launched and grew their careers, regardless of their field of study and degree.

This event featured a discussion on:

• Unlocking Potential Through Accessibility: Emphasizing the importance of breaking down barriers to student creativity.
• Fostering Inclusivity and Diversity: Central to democratizing creativity was fostering inclusivity and celebrating diversity within student populations.
• Technology as an Enabler: Using Adobe Express + Firefly as a powerful enabler in democratizing creativity.
• The Role of Leadership and Advocacy: How academic and institutional leadership played a critical role in driving the democratization of creativity.

The event also included live demonstrations and an interactive Q&A to address questions and share best practices.

There has never been a more critical time to transform education, and Adobe has long been on a mission to help institutions ensure that students succeed.

This on-demand webinar focuses on Adobe Express + Firefly, powerful tools to enhance creativity across all disciplines in education. In this session, we delved into practical applications, tips, and tricks that empowered everyone on campus to successfully create dynamic and engaging content.

The discussion featured:

• An overview of Adobe Express and its application in educational settings.
• An introduction to how students could create amazing images with generative AI features powered by Adobe Firefly.
• Live demonstrations showing how to effortlessly create meaningful content and assets.
• An interactive Q&A to address questions and share best practices.