On Tuesday 27 October 2026, I facilitated a workshop for a group of support staff from 5 Victorian independent schools titled – Creating visual content without design skills. The workshop explored accessible ways to produce visual content, with a strong focus on Adobe Express and opportunities to extend the creative process through generative AI and Photoshop.
School support staff regularly create the visual materials that connect a school with its community. Posters, social posts and short videos all help communicate important messages, yet the people producing them may have little formal design training. Practical professional learning can help staff approach these tasks with greater confidence and develop skills they can apply immediately.
Starting with everyday communication
We began with making simple posters in Adobe Express before exploring how animation could bring those posters to life. Participants also worked on social posts and short animated videos, broadening the range of formats available for everyday school communication.
These activities connected creative tools with a familiar workplace responsibility: communicating a message clearly. A school event poster, for example, needs to help its audience quickly identify what is happening and what action to take. Adding movement introduces another creative choice, but the purpose of the communication still needs to guide the design.
Adobe Express provided a central platform for exploring these possibilities. Adobe makes Express for Education available free to eligible K–12 schools globally, with school access arranged through its education account and deployment processes. This makes it a useful option for schools seeking to build creative capability across their community without an additional Express subscription cost.
Extending ideas with generative AI
The workshop also covered generating images with Adobe Firefly and Microsoft Copilot, followed by manipulating generated images in Photoshop. This introduced a workflow in which an initial generated image could become material for further editing and creative development.
The educational value of this process extends beyond learning which buttons to press. An AI-generated image still requires human judgement. Does it suit the intended audience? Does it communicate the right message? What needs to be changed before it is appropriate to publish? The ability to evaluate and refine an image remains an important part of visual communication.
Moving between Express, image generators and Photoshop also illustrated how different tools can contribute to a creative task. Staff can begin with an accessible design environment and extend their work as their confidence and needs develop.
Considering responsible use
Alongside the practical activities, the workshop included ethical AI and the environmental impact of AI. These discussions placed creative possibilities within a broader conversation about responsible technology use.
For school staff, learning to use AI involves making decisions about when it adds value and how its outputs should be reviewed. Environmental considerations add another reason to approach generation thoughtfully. The aim is to develop informed habits alongside technical skills, so that creative confidence is accompanied by considered judgement.
One participant valued this dimension of the session, commenting: “It was great to hear a brief summary of ethical AI and the detail was great.”
We viewed and discussed this video …
Skills staff can use immediately
Participant feedback highlighted both the practical relevance of the learning and the enthusiasm it generated. One returning participant wrote: “This is my third session with Tim and every session I walk away with new skills that I can immediately adopt in my day to day duties. Thank you Tim you are saving me so much time”.
Another described it as a “Terrific workshop, feeling very creative”, while a further comment noted: “Everything was explained well and Tim was really knowledgeable”.
The connection between professional learning and workplace application was particularly clear in this response: “Thank you!!! This is exactly what I was looking for and I am very excited to implement your practical suggestions”.
These comments offer encouraging indications of participants’ confidence and perceived usefulness of the session. They also reinforce the value of professional learning that gives support staff time to explore tools relevant to their daily responsibilities.
Supporting creativity across the school
Support staff make a significant contribution to how schools communicate. Investing in their creative capabilities recognises that contribution and helps them respond to an expanding range of visual communication tasks.
The workshop brought together simple design, animation, image generation and editing with discussion of responsible AI use. The feedback suggests that participants left with practical ideas they were keen to apply. For me, that is a valuable outcome: staff seeing new possibilities in their everyday work and feeling equipped to explore them.
Stay tuned for a new range of professional learning for school support staff being offered by ISV in 2027.