Adobe Express for Education Teachers FAQ

What is Adobe Express for Education? 

Adobe Express for Education is the all-in-one design app to imagine, create, share, and collaborate in your classroom and beyond. Adobe Express for Education combines the best features of tools educators know and love, like Adobe Premiere Rush, Adobe Photoshop Express, Adobe Spark Video, and Adobe Spark Page, into one easy-to-use, yet powerful tool.

The latest version of Adobe Express comes with new and improved features, including:

• All-in-one editor - Combine video clips, artwork, animations, and music to make videos with drag-and-drop ease.
• Animate from Audio - Watch characters come to life with lips and gestures synching to recorded dialogue.
• Seamless workflows with Photoshop and Illustrator - Edit creative assets from Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator directly within Adobe Express, or add linked files that always stay in sync across apps.
• Import and enhance PDFs - Import and enhance PDF flyers and brochures by quickly and easily adding and editing text, images, brand logos, and more.
• Real-time collaboration - Collaborate in real-time. Create faster with real-time sharing and commenting.

An Adobe Express for Education plan adds additional features and functionality that are critical to schools, including:

• Adobe Express for Education offers safe search functionality across Adobe Express so educators can focus on students rather than safeguards.
• Ability to set up single sign-on so students can easily log in with their existing school ID.
• Educator Resources tab within Adobe Express helps educators find starter content like lesson plans, creative challenges, templates, and more for using Express in their classrooms.
• Enhanced controls to keep students safe. Schools own the accounts and exercise admin rights over them. Plus, safe search for image and video results that are age-appropriate for K-12 students
• Premium creative assets and student-friendly Adobe Stock images are included - no paywalls, ads, or popups exist.
• Students don't get access to the Discover tab in Adobe Photoshop Express, so they can stay focused on their work.
  

What are school/district accounts?

School or district accounts are for licensed educational institutions and nonprofit educational organizations that grant school or district-wide classroom access to teachers, faculty, and students. IT administrators create these accounts and manage users and group permissions through Adobe's Admin Console. This allows educational institutions to maintain seamless user control throughout their school. Teachers must work through their IT administrator to set up and manage these accounts.

What are classroom accounts?

Classroom accounts are a type of account that teachers can set up without the need for a school or district IT administrator and bring on students to create their own classroom accounts. Classroom accounts for Adobe Express are only available to education users, specifically teachers and students in educational institutions.

• Teacher classroom account: A classroom account for teachers with controls to manage classrooms.
• Student classroom account: A classroom account for students.

What are the benefits of classroom accounts for teachers?

With classroom accounts, verified United States K-12 teachers can:

• Set up classrooms for all their classes.
• Invite students to join each classroom (the environment teachers create for each class), with a class code and get their own student classroom accounts.
  • A class code is a unique combination of letters and numbers that teachers send to students to have them join a specific classroom.
  • A class code link is a unique link, connected to a class code, that teachers can send to students to have them access the classroom quickly.
• Manage classrooms and student work from the classroom manager (the teacher dashboard in teacher classroom accounts) where teachers can:
  • Manage classrooms.
  • Invite students to classrooms.
  • Manage class codes.
  • View student work.

How are classroom accounts different from school/district accounts?

The IT administrators create school or district accounts. This administration account grants permission to teachers and students to use Adobe Express within the school or district organization. 

• School or district accounts let teachers and students access Adobe Express and create projects. 
• School or district accounts don't give teachers access to: 
  • The classroom manager 
  • Classrooms 
  • Class codes
  • View and/or delete student project

While a teacher cannot set up a district account, they can have both a district and a classroom account at the same time. These two accounts are separate, and projects on one account would not be available on another. The critical difference is that a district account is set up on behalf of the teacher by the school administrator, and a classroom account is created directly by the teacher if they're based in the United States.

What are school/district Admin Controls?

Using the Adobe Admin Console, school or district administrators have to enable teachers to create classroom accounts. Administrators can disable the ability for teachers to create classroom accounts in the Adobe Admin Console via the Directory Settings tab. Disabling this setting will prevent teachers from creating new classroom accounts.

Some teachers might create classroom accounts before their administrators claim their Adobe Admin Console. Administrators who later claim their console can still tum off the classroom account feature, if they choose to do so.

Teachers and students who lose access to their classroom accounts due to administrators disabling classrooms will receive an Adobe email notification letting them know the accounts have been disabled. If their account is disabled, teachers must speak with their administrator about the school or district's preferred method of accessing Adobe Express.

How to create classroom accounts?

United States-based teachers can create classroom accounts in Adobe Express if they meet specific criteria: 

• The teacher is verified in the United States. Adobe will also check that the teacher is based in the United States - classroom accounts are not available outside the United States at this time.

• The teacher has entered a Google Workspace for Education account, given to them by their school or district. Microsoft accounts, personal Google email accounts, or other account types are unavailable today.

• The teacher has either an email address or domain that is verified to be an educational email or verified to be a domain belonging to an educational institution.

  • If the teacher’s IT administrator has already claimed the school’s domain with Adobe and verified that it's educational, any teacher in that domain can create a classroom account.

  • If the teacher’s IT administrator has NOT verified the domain with Adobe, then any teacher with a “.edu” or “k12.state.us” domain on their email account can join. For example, jsmith@adobe.edu would be able to create a classroom account, but jsmith@adobe.net would not be able to create an account.

If any of these criteria apply to the teacher, and their administration has not disabled classroom accounts for their district, then the teacher can create a classroom account.

How to be eligible for a classroom account? 

If you're not eligible for a classroom account or you cannot be verified for a classroom account, you can contact your administrator and ask them to deploy Adobe Express school or district accounts for you and your students.

What is the teacher verification process and troubleshooting?

Adobe uses a third-party verification system, SheerID, to validate that the person signing up is a teacher currently working for the school. If SheerID cannot verify you instantly, you must Submit Documentation to be verified manually. You'll be asked to share a document verifying your teacher employment status, like a teacher ID or a pay stub.

After submitting your verification, you'll receive an email confirmation and will be notified over email when SheerID approves your verification. At that point, you can finish creating your Adobe Express classroom account.

If a teacher isn't verified by SheerID either instantly or through submitting documentation, the classroom account option isn't available for them at this time. If you also look for your school name and cannot find it, SheerID may not have your school in its database. Unfortunately, you'll not be able to proceed at this time.

What are the resources for teachers in higher education?

How to get additional teacher training on Adobe Express?

To get started with classroom accounts, or to learn more about how IT administrators can set up school or district accounts, click here. You can also visit the Adobe Education Exchange to collaborate with other educators on Adobe Express and more.