When you find or create a color scheme in Adobe Express that you want to use in multiple projects, there is an easy way to make sure you get all of the shades exactly right. The way to do that is by using color hex codes instead of using the color selection tool. By using color hex codes you can be certain that you're using the exact shade of a color that you want to display. In this short video I demonstrate how to use color hex codes in Adobe Express projects.
In this week's Practical Ed Tech Newsletter I featured a fun tool from Adobe called Animate from Audio. Based on the responses that I received to the newsletter, Animate from Audio is going to be used in a lot of classrooms over the next couple of weeks. A couple of the responses that I got were questions about using custom avatars and backgrounds in the videos.
Unfortunately, you can't upload your own avatar to the Animate from Audio editor. But you can upload your own background images to use in your videos. That process and the whole process of making a video with Animate from Audio is demonstrated in the video that is embedded below.
Applications for Education
Like I did in the video above, by using custom backgrounds students can create short videos to explain the highlights of a famous (or not-so-famous) place.
As I do at this time every year, I'm taking the week off to ski and play with my kids, shovel snow, and generally not think about work. I have some of the most popular posts of the year scheduled to republish this week. New posts will resume in the new year.
Removing the background from an image is a good way to protect your privacy and that of people who might unintentionally be in the background of your pictures. Remove image backgrounds is also a good way to get a stand-alone image of yourself to then place in front of a different background. For example, I could take a picture of myself at my local ski mountain then replace the background so that I look like I'm climbing Mount Everest.
In the following video I provide demonstrations of four quick and easy ways to remove the background from your images. One way to use this with students is to have them place themselves in front of landmarks of the world then write about their virtual visit to those landmarks.
In the video above I demonstrated how to remove image backgrounds with the following free tools:
I like to end the week with something fun. If you do too, head over to Animate from Audio hosted by Adobe Express. Animate from Audio is a fun little tool that matches your spoken words to an animated character of your choosing. The finished product is a fun little video that you can download as an MP4 and or share on your favorite websites.
To create a video with Animate from Audio simply head to the site then select the character that you want to animate. Then record your spoken audio. After recording your audio Adobe Express then matches your audio to movements of your chosen character. The more inflection you use in your spoken audio, the more movement you'll see in the character. Watch the video that is embedded below to see how Animate from Audio works.
Applications for Education
In the video above I hinted at the idea of creating a few talking animations with Animate from Audio and then stringing them together in another video editor. By doing that students could create short videos to bring to life short stories they written. Making animations like that is also one of the many things that I teach in my online course, Animated Explanations.
In Adobe Express there are two ways that students can create timelines. The first is to use one the more than 250 timeline infographic templates that Adobe Express offers. Students can customize those templates by changing the font, color scheme, and graphics. They can also use the integrated image search to find pictures to use in their timelines. Completed timelines can be downloaded as PDFs and as PNG files.
The other way that students can create timelines in Adobe Express is by creating a simple web page in a linear format. When using that option students can include videos and hyperlinks in their timelines as well as pictures and text.
Applications for Education
If you and your students are already using Adobe Express for other things like making videos and editing images, Adobe Express provides a convenient way to build a printable timeline. If you're not already using Adobe Express and you're looking for a tool that is specifically designed for building timelines, I would try Timeline JS or Sutori first.
Yesterday afternoon I published a video and blog post about using Canva to create custom QR codes that include your own images and graphic designs. The Adobe Express suite of tools also offers a QR code creation tool. QR code creation tool in Adobe Express doesn't let you use pictures in your codes like Canva does, but you can customize the color scheme and format of your QR codes. It's a nice option for those who are already using the Adobe Express suite and need to quickly create a QR code. Watch my video below to see how it works.
I am often asked for recommendations for simple website builders that teachers and students can use to create small websites. The purpose isn’t to share everything they’ve done and have you grade it. Tools like Seesaw and Spaces are good for that. The purpose of these kinds of sites is to share photography, their resumes, videos they’ve made, or awards and references they’ve received.
Google Sites is fine for making simple sites, but the aesthetics still have a long way to go. Services like WordPress and Wix are great, but they have way more menus and options than what's needed for a quick and simple site. Fortunately, there are some good tools students can use to quickly create simple, good-looking websites to showcase their work and share a bit about themselves. Here are a couple that are worth trying.
Carrd.co is an easy-to-use tool to quickly create good-looking, simple websites. I used to to create a little photography showcase site in less than ten minutes. It looks much better than anything I could have created with Google Sites or WordPress. Watch this short demo to see how you can create a portfolio site with Carrd.co.
Adobe Express (formerly known as Adobe Spark) has a webpage creator that offers a fantastic way to create simple websites in which your students can include images, text, and videos. Consider having your students arrange their pages chronologically so that the top of the page shows their work at the beginning of the year and then as viewers scroll down they see your students' latest work. Click here for a video tutorial on how to use Adobe Express to create a simple website.
A few weeks ago I shared directions for creating green screen videos in Canva. That method is great because it doesn't require you to record in front of a physical green screen. Today, I'd like to share another method that doesn't require you to record in front of a physical green screen. That method uses a combination of Zoom and Adobe Express.
Zoom's desktop client has an option to replace your background with any picture that you want to upload to your Zoom account. Host a Zoom meeting without any participants in it, replace the background, and start talking. When you end the meeting you'll have an MP4 that you can import in Adobe Express for further editing and or combine with other video clips.
Applications for Education
As someone who spent years teaching world geography classes, one of my favorite uses of green screens is to have students create "on location" video reports about places they've researched. This combination of Zoom and Adobe Express makes it easy to make those videos without the need for a physical green screen.
Earlier this week Adobe Spark was renamed Adobe Express. It still offers all of the great creation tools that made it one of my go-to video creation tools for the last half-decade. A couple of helpful updates were also included when Adobe Spark was relaunched as Adobe Express. Those updates include a new icon library, updated integrated image search, and more font and color scheme choices.
Since Adobe Spark was renamed Adobe Express I created a new video to reflect the new name and updated video creation features. You can watch the video right here.
