#343 – Thank-You Card Templates and Generators

#343 — Thank-You Card Templates and Generators

AVID Open Access
11 min

Keywords
thank-you cards, Adobe Express, Canva tool, AI generator, customizable templates, design elements, share options, Magic Media, text prompts, positive communication, educator tools, social media, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, efficient messaging

Transcript

Paul Beckermann 0:01
Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I’m your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music 0:04
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? So, what’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:17
The topic of today’s episode is Thank-You Card Templates and Generators.

I’ve never met someone who didn’t appreciate a compliment or a thank you. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving week, I’ve decided to make this episode about easy and efficient ways of saying thank you to those who make a positive difference in our world. This might mean thanking a colleague for their support, a parent for volunteering in your classroom, an administrator who backed you up when you needed their support, or maybe a student who demonstrated high character and generosity in your classroom. No matter who you want to recognize, I’d like to share three digital tools that can help you create and share a well designed thank-you message. The first two tools I’ll share offer multimedia thank-you card templates that you can customize. And the third is an AI tool that can help you craft that special thank-you message to put on the card.

Transition Music 1:10
Let’s count it. Let’s count it. Let’s count it down.

Paul Beckermann 1:14
The first of these tools is Adobe Express. Adobe Express contains a robust suite of tools and templates that you can use to create nearly any kind of media project, including thank-you cards. And to make this tool even more attractive, Adobe offers the premium version of this tool to all educators at no cost. In other words, if you’re a teacher, you can get the full pro version for free. Now, that’s a great deal. The process I’d recommend for generating thank-you notes in Adobe Express is pretty simple and straightforward. When you go to Adobe Express, I’d suggest clicking on the Search box at the top of the screen, where it says, “Search Everything,” and then type in “thank you,” and hit enter. You’ll get over 19,000 results which, I’ll admit, can be a little overwhelming. To help with that, there are category limiters at the top, which help you limit your results to templates, photos, videos, backgrounds, design assets, or webpage templates. If you’d rather not use the limiters, you can also browse the examples that appear on the first page of results. If you find something you like there, you can save a lot of time and just move ahead. My personal preference is to choose the templates limiter to get started. Once I’ve done that, I can select the additional filter titled “Thank-You Card,” which is exactly what I’m looking for. Even when I do that, I still have access to a whole sidebar of additional limiters, such as output type, subject, grade level, style, mood, and type. This is a pretty common experience when you use Adobe Express. There are options everywhere that you can use to help speed up your process, limit your search, or help you customize your creation.

Rather than selecting any of the limiters, this time, I simply clicked on one of the suggested thank-you card options that appeared on the page. In fact, there were several I liked without any further refining of my search, it was quick and easy to find something I liked, just as I had hoped. After clicking the template, I clicked the Customize Template button to get started creating my own personal version of this card. So once you get to this point, you can make it your own. For this example, I like the style and some of the message that was already on the card, but some of it didn’t work perfectly for my situation. To edit the text, I simply clicked in the text box and changed the wording to something I liked better. Easy. I was also able to change any of the text formatting, such as font style, online thickness, opacity, and text effects. I could even choose options for modifying design elements, adding media, and translating the text. If I wanted to change the size of the entire document, I could click the Resize option. While you can choose any custom size you’d like, Adobe Express offers preset options for just about any type of social media post, video, document type, posters, webpages, andreally way too many for me to mention here. The presets can save a lot of time. Honestly, it’s a little mind boggling how many options you have, but you don’t have to use any of them. You can simply use the template as it is, or if you want, you can customize some of it or even totally redesign it, if that’s what you want to do. It’s totally up to you. Because Express is an Adobe product, they have embedded image editing features found in their industry leading Adobe Photoshop application. There are options for removing image backgrounds, erasing parts of an image, removing unwanted objects, and even inserting AI-generated elements into an existing image. If you click on the media menu at the left, you’ll also have quick access to Adobe Firefly, the AI image generator. This lets you create an AI-generated image from a simple text prompt. Once it’s generated, you can add it right to your project.

When you’re finished designing your card, you’ve got several options for sharing it. Number one, you can download it and then either print it or embed the file in another document. Number two, you can share it with others via a link. This would be great for including it in an email or a text message. There are also quick options to share it into Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams. You can save it to Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive if you want to save it or share it from these spaces. Number three, you can assign it to a class. Now, you’d use this option if you wanted your students to design and share their own thank-you cards. By clicking the Assign button, you can share it with any class that you’ve set up. You can add an assignment title, instructions, and a due date. You can even preview it in Student View before assigning it. With these options, you can share your message in so many different ways. You can email it, post it on social media, insert it in the newsletter, put it on your website, mail a printed copy, the list goes on.

The second tool I’d like to highlight is Canva. This is another multimedia design tool that’s very similar to Adobe Express. For the simplest experience, you can, once again, type “Thank You” into the search box at the top. Also, like the experience with Adobe Express, I was presented with over 10,000 options. In Canva, however, I did not have filters like I did in Adobe Express. Instead, I was offered a list of templates that were made by other Canva users, who they call creators. I still had lots of pre-made examples to choose from that I could use to jumpstart my creation. I scrolled until I found one that I liked, and then I clicked on it. As with Adobe Express, I was offered the option to customize the template. I could change the template in almost any way I could imagine and make it personal to my needs. One feature here that wasn’t in Adobe Express were the suggestions for “More like this.” That could be really helpful if you find something that’s close to what you want but not quite the perfect match. That button might lead you to what you’re looking for. Almost everything on this card is editable. Simply click a design element to bring up a menu with tools that allow you to customize it. Once again, there are way too many for me to mention here, but all the options you’d expect to find are there, from text design to adding design elements like shapes and images. It’s almost endless. There’s also a cool feature on the left-side menu called MagicMedia, which utilizes generative AI to create custom images, graphics, and even videos that you can insert into your design. This is handy if you want a specific type of image or media and don’t have access to one click the generated image to add it to your design and customize the size and location as needed. It took me a few tries to generate an image I wanted to use, but it was an easy process, and in the end, it worked out great. To share your thank-you message, click the Share button at the top. Here you can get a shareable link, download it, print with Canva, add it to your LMS, create an assignment, share to Google classroom or Microsoft Teams. share to social, get embed code, and even more. There appear to be more quick-share options with Canva than Adobe Express. Both Adobe Express and Canva serve much the same purpose and can help you create a well-designed thank-you message in a very short amount of time. I’d suggest trying both applications and then using the one that feels more intuitive to you.

The third and final tool I want to share is MagicSchool Thank You Note Generator. Rather than a tool to design the visual aspects of the thank-you note, this tool is intended to help you generate the words for your thank-you message. To use it, type in a description of what you’d like to thank someone for. Then click Generate to produce the text. If you like what you get, you can copy it into your card. If it’s not quite right, you can edit the prompt and try generating again. If you don’t feel like wordsmithing is your talent, this AI tool might be just what you need to craft the right thank-you message. MagicSchool states that the best uses for these tools are for expressing gratitude, saving time and effort by making the process more efficient and enhancing relationships through positive communication. I think any of those uses are fitting for this Thanksgiving season, and I want to encourage you to take this opportunity to send a quick thank-you note to someone who has positively impacted your life. Print out a thank-you card or send it virtually. No matter how you do it, I know the gesture will be appreciated, and perhaps these three digital tools can help you do that more effectively and efficiently.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I’m thankful for all of you and the important work that you do everyday. To learn more about today’s topic and explore other free resources, visit AvidOpenAccess.org. And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we’re joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.