AI Art in the Classroom with Tim Needles

Vicki Davis: I’m so excited today to have someone I have admired for so much time. Tim Needles is an artist, educator, performer, and author of STEAM Power from ISTE. He’s been featured on NPR, New York Times, Columbus Museum of Art, and the Norman Rockwell Museum. Tim has won ISTE’s Making It Happen Award, NYSATA’s 2025 New York State Art Teacher of the Year, NAEA’s Art Educator Award, and the Rauschenberg Power of Art Award. He’s a board member of NYSCATE, an ISTE Community Leader, and a NASA Solar System Ambassador — I think that’s my favorite. Tim, you’ve been teaching what, 25 years and doing all this?

Tim Needles: Yeah, yeah, it’s a little bit of an embarrassing bio, but yeah, that’s what happened. It all adds up over time.

Vicki Davis: So one thing you talk about are these amazing long, extended projects. What are some of your favorites?

Tim Needles: One of them started with students designing a graphic. I’m on Long Island, so when you live on an island, the water is a big factor — we were talking about keeping the water clean. Then I started collaborating with science teachers in the building and we turned the individual project into a mural project. Let’s continue to scale this. And we brought it out into the community. The students were part of every single step. We presented to the mayor of the town, we presented to ecology, and to a paint company that was making the paint for the roads. We got permission — it took a year and a half to actually create murals for the local storm drains that tell the community why it’s important to keep them clean, and it also beautifies the neighborhood.

When you do a project that starts in the classroom and bridges into the community, I think it’s really powerful. We do one a year, and we started doing it at all the different schools, making sure the students at those schools were part of it. It became a legacy project — not only does it teach and merge different subjects together, but students come back from college now to work on them because it’s that important to them. Everyone kind of knows what you’re doing in the classroom in a way they otherwise wouldn’t. And if you ever have to talk to politicians and try to get approval, always bring students. It’s a lot harder to say no to teenagers who are planning and speaking.

Vicki Davis: Yeah. There are some people, Tim — do people ever say, “But you’re an art teacher”? Does anybody ever say that?

Tim Needles: Not anymore. I used to get it, but it’s been a while, because I’m a curious person and I think curiosity is what you lead with as a teacher. I’m an art teacher and I process things through that lens, but I’m really interested in technology and quantum physics. I just took a class in quantum physics because I know it’s going to be important for AI in the future. And when I go into an English classroom, I’m like, what are you guys reading about? I’m just as curious to learn. So I bring that creative lens to whatever I’m doing. I think I’ve established enough of a reputation now.

Vicki Davis: I had a great professor in college and he said, “Listen, in the real world, these subjects aren’t separate. Everything’s together.” One of those tools I know you talk a lot about is Adobe Express, because of how it was created — it respects the artist. Tell us about that tool and any others that are a good simple place for everyday teachers to get started blending art with whatever their subject is.

Tim Needles: I kind of love Adobe Express. I’ve been using it since it came out, and I love that teachers are put in the forefront. Adobe invited me to put in 10 templates that teachers could just use — that was an exciting opportunity. There are a bunch of teachers up there now sharing their templates. One of the things I like is that students can just remix a template, so you don’t have to start from that blank page, which is intimidating to a lot of people. I have one project up there that anyone could use: using AI to actually build your imagination. Imagine a device or invention for the future that solves some environmental problem, explain it, and then use text-to-image to show what it looks like. That’s empowering — students have an idea and can see it visualized right away. And the fact that it works on any device, even a Chromebook — you don’t need a lot of computing power — is terrific. It really is democratic. I love that.

Vicki Davis: The templates are very, very useful. It’s become one of my favorite tools for AI art creation. While you and I were both speaking at FETC, my students were doing their project — I call it To Dream a Dream. They pick different categories of dreams and express them. I saw the most fantastic house: a student created this house on the seashore, and the under part of the house was like an aquarium with a whale jumping up. I’d never seen anything like it. So when you introduce this to students, what do you tell them so they still respect the medium — the watercolors, the clay, all the artistry out there?

Tim Needles: When photography was invented, they were afraid of what would happen to painting. But over 100 years later, painting’s doing fine. I love painting. There’s something nice about unplugging and using tactile tools — I still draw in a sketchbook every day. When I talk to students about using AI tools, the students who are using it better are just more descriptive. Sometimes those prompts can be over a page long. You can make them a gem in Google, or use these really long prompts in Adobe. So you need a little bit of persistence. It’s faster to create now — you can make two or three different versions and then compare. I always like to push that critique angle, where you’re looking at artwork and talking about it, regardless of what media you’re using.

Vicki Davis: You said you write in your sketchbook. What are those daily habits that you encourage?

Tim Needles: Set aside a time when you’re just being creative every day — that’s a low bar. I use a tool called One Second a Day for filming. Since 2017, I’ve filmed at least one second each day, and it’s like a visual journal of your year. It helps you understand yourself a little better and conceptualize time. I like to literally spend at least 10 minutes a day being creative. It doesn’t need to be one specific thing — sometimes it’s drawing, sometimes taking pictures. Art is good for the soul. That’s the important thing. You don’t have to be good at it. Don’t bring any judgment to what you’re doing. One of the biggest things as an artist is putting yourself out there and blocking away that judgment, whether it’s from you or from other people. I love karaoke. I’m not the best singer in the world, but it’s fun. It helps build identity too. Now in the world of AI, you’re seeing AI take over some administrative tasks, which should give us more time to do the things we love, like the arts.

Vicki Davis: I do the morning pages, since I’m a writer — my goal is three pages a day. I don’t always make it, but now I do it on my reMarkable tablet, which is wonderful because I can handwrite it all, and if I love it I hit the three dots and turn it into text. It syncs with my computer. That habit of creativity really adds the spice to life. We’re creative creatures. What kind of habits do you teach your students? Do they have art journals?

Tim Needles: Having a journal is just a really helpful thing. It might be just for yourself — it might not end up in the art, but I always believe in having a journal, and in having freedom with that journal. You want to collage in there? Go for it. Write? Absolutely. Draw and write? Fantastic. Tape in pictures? Whatever you want. There’s an idea that came out a couple years ago about a wreck-it journal, where you mess it up and then find a way to make it creative. One of the things you really need to do is push your own creativity — it’s a skill you can build, so you need to challenge yourself. It can’t always be easy. Sometimes you put yourself in a box so you can find a creative way out of it. I give students creative exercises every week, specifically to build creativity. One of my favorites is to create a self-portrait without using any art materials whatsoever — find things around the room, draw with objects or nature.

Vicki Davis: What are the things teachers come back to you and say, “Tim, thank you for that”?

Tim Needles: Ironically, it’s a lot of the creative exercises for teachers. One of the things I really promote is that you don’t want to burn out — you want to make sure you take care of yourself and take time to be creative. Teachers are often really giving, and they don’t always give themselves that time. When I was younger, I looked at people at the age of retirement, and you could see some were just burned out. I never want to be that. One of the ways to avoid it is to follow your passion, be creative, be curious, and collaborate with students. That’s always the most powerful message, because it’s exciting and it keeps the classroom interesting. We’re all going to have difficult moments, but if you collaborate and work together, it makes it so much easier.

Vicki Davis: Teaching is such a hard job. Why would we do it if it wasn’t fun?

Tim Needles: Absolutely. Fun is underrated. It’s so important.

Vicki Davis: These little moments where you just go, “Where did that come from?”

Tim Needles: They’re always the most fun things. I remember one time I had a student who actually broke into my classroom to do extra work. I came in one morning and saw him there working — he’d broken in because he wanted to finish his project. I don’t mind a student breaking in to do more work. That was a couple of years ago. Now he’s working for Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas’s company. It shows that passion really pays off. I couldn’t fault him for coming in and working extra hours. It’s a testament to making sure you connect kids to the arts, because for some kids it becomes a career and a passion they live on with.

Vicki Davis: I love that story. So where are the best ways to connect? I know you share a lot on social media. Where do you share the most these days?

Tim Needles: Instagram, LinkedIn. I do a video each week on YouTube about a different technology.

Vicki Davis: Awesome. Tim Needles — you can see why he’s so awesome. Great speaker, travels, talks, creates art, has fun with students. And it’s a pretty big deal to have a student working for Industrial Light & Magic. That’s really cool. Thanks for coming on the show, Tim.

Tim Needles: Thank you, it’s great to talk to you. You’re one of my OG friends in the education sphere. I remember I did one of my first conferences with you back in Jersey — more than 20 years ago, it could have been.

Vicki Davis: None of us should play king of the hill. And I know you and I don’t — we should make a bigger hill, because we need more people in the classroom talking about what they’re doing, sharing the stories, and giving people hope that you can have exciting classrooms where kids want to come to school so much they might actually get in trouble for breaking into the classroom. Thanks.