TOP PICKS | 23 TOOLS

Apps and Websites for Making Posters and Collages

Student-created posters are a time-tested way to get kids to synthesize information visually as well as demonstrate and present learning. Posters are also great tools for teachers to display important information on classroom walls. These poster-making apps and websites enhance the experience by helping students and teachers work digitally, assembling multimedia posters and collages that mix drawings, writing, images, and more. There are also a few tools for inspiration that model creative possibilities or connect students and teachers to cool images they can use in their projects.

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Faces iMake - Right Brain Creativity

Open-ended collage maker teaches symbolism and revs up creativity

Bottom line: Faces iMake - Right Brain Creativity is a don't-miss art app that encourages creativity at the same time as modeling it.

Grades: Pre-K–6 Price: Paid $2.99

MoMA Art Lab

Interactive projects, cool prompts, and famous works inspire creation

Bottom line: The overall experience is very open-ended, making it easy to bounce between creating and exploring art.

Grades: 1–8 Price: Free

Popplet

A compact, simple organizational tool for minimalist presentation

Bottom line: Great web-based presentation tool for beginners.

Grades: 1–12 Price: Free, Paid Subscription pricing ranges from $0.50 per student per year (over 1000 students) to $2.00 per student per year (up to 50 students).

Adobe Capture CC

Magical design tool extracts colors, patterns, and more from images

Bottom line: The rare combo of "wow" factor and utility, this tool help students recognize and use the designed world around them.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free A free Adobe Creative Cloud account is required to access all features.

Adobe Photoshop Mix - Cut out, combine, create

Impressive photo-editing app focuses on compositing, blending imagery

Bottom line: While it's tackling a slightly niche design need (blending, layering, compositing photos), Photoshop Mix is an incredible tool that makes these processes shockingly simple on mobile devices.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free

Canva - Photo Editor & Design

Create snazzy designs in seconds with flexible, cloud-based tool

Bottom line: A flexible, accessible way to get kids -- especially design novices -- creating digitally in your classroom if you have stable internet and time to get students set up to be successful.

Grades: 4–12 Price: Free

The Noun Project

Think in pictures with vibrant visual language everyone can understand

Bottom line: It's a neat, well-executed concept with lots of possibilities for learning, imagining, and creating.

Grades: 4–12 Price: Free To download icons without attribution, monthly rates range from $10 (personal) to $500 (agency).

Flickr

Popular sharing site potentially useful as a classroom photo resource

Bottom line: Make use of some incredible photographs in your classroom, but don't let students wander astray on the site.

Grades: 5–12 Price: Free

Smore

Create online flyers, learn a little about marketing with design tool

Bottom line: A fast way to fashion attractive flyers, but students will need outside help to learn about PR and marketing and effective, concise writing.

Grades: 5–12 Price: Free, Paid Basic, very limited version, is free. Personal, business, and corporate plans available for monthly fees. Educator plan is $79/year.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Top-notch photo editor helps perfect pics for creative projects

Bottom line: This is a powerful, free creation tool from the industry leader in photo editing.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free

Microsoft Sway

Cool scroll effects, flexible features boost visual storytelling tool

Bottom line: A great tool for design and presentation, if great visuals and easy sharing trump having the active viewing features present in other tools.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free

Procreate

Outstanding art tool supports the workflow of seasoned digital painters

Bottom line: For iPads, this is a best-in-class tool with enough pro-level features and technology, and some nice support resources.

Grades: 6–12 Price: $5.99 Additional tools can be purchased in-app.

ThingLink

Unique annotation tool adds learning depth to images, videos

Bottom line: It's unlike anything else out there, helping students and teachers produce interactive multimedia presentations embedded in images and videos.

Grades: 6–12 Price: Free, Paid Free version includes safe browsing and 100 students. Optional premium version is $35/year and has no cap on students, full-screen presentation, and customizability including fonts, colors, and click controls. School and district pricing (with monitoring of all work) is available; contact for a quote.

Easel.ly

Think critically, share creatively with infographic-creation tool

Bottom line: Even though the basic themes and images are limited, when prepared well, this tool can help students connect with content in a meaningful way.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free

Infogr.am

Snazzy, easy infographic maker visually pleasing but lacks design help

Bottom line: The site is a great asset for classroom presentations and analyzing data, but educators need to provide guidance to ensure students learn while using it.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free, Paid Free version supports 10 projects and public sharing only. Pro version, available for $25/month or $228/year, supports up to 100 projects and allows for private projects, as well as premium theming and a large library of images.

Lucidpress

Collaborative publishing and design tool has lots of options, templates

Bottom line: An easy-to-use mash-up of InDesign and Google Drive, Lucidpress fills a niche for publication creation and collaboration.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free to Try, Paid

Piktochart

Add oomph to info with sleek infographic tool

Bottom line: Tech-savvy kids will immediately take to this well-designed, reasonably easy-to-use tool.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free, Paid There's a free version. The paid version for educators is $39.99 per year and allows access to all templates. It also adds 400MB of storage for custom photos, a variety of options to download projects, private projects, and removes the Piktochart watermark. There's also a classroom account that supports up to 30 accounts for $120 for four months.

Autodesk Sketchbook

Impressive creation tool for teens serious about art

Bottom line: Gives students easy access to professional tools for creating digital art.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free to Try While the app is free to try, the full Pro version is $4.99. This version adds a host of creative options from brush types to colors to more layers. There's also a $29.99 per year Sketchbook subscription that unlocks the Pro version across all platforms.

Venngage

Create impressive infographics with ease

Bottom line: Surprisingly simple way for students to think critically and communicate ideas in an appealing, visual format, but could be a bit more edu-friendly with extra educator/student supports.

Grades: 7–12 Price: Free to Try, Paid $29/month gives educators 35 accounts for students and teachers, class sharing, and premium features for all users. The yearly subscription costs $99 and gives educators 35 accounts for students and teachers, class sharing, and premium features for all users.

Adobe Spark

Super-flexible design tool for crafting fab images, videos, and sites

Bottom line: This free, one-stop shop for creating sleek graphics, web stories, and animated videos is incredibly easy to use and challenges students to think critically about visual presentation.

Grades: 8–12 Price: Free

PicCollage - Photo Collage Maker & Picture Editor

Versatile, intuitive, engaging collage maker yields impressive designs

Bottom line: With some privacy setup, and possibly upgrading to the paid version, this can be an excellent design tool for creating custom collages, teaching graphic design, layout, and photo editing.

Grades: 8–12 Price: Free, Paid In-app purchases available from $0.99 to $2.99, including sticker packs and the ability to remove watermarks and ads.

PicMonkey Photo Editor

Reliable photo editor built for design and social sharing

Bottom line: A great, social media-friendly option for teaching teens design, layout, and photo editing, but the paid version is more competitive with other tools.

Grades: 8–12 Price: Free, Paid There's a free version that has basic functionality and ads. The ad-free and more functional Premium and Supremium versions are $3.99 and $8.33 per month, billed annually. Premium has storage for 50 images while Supremium has unlimited storage and more organizational options.