Adobe Education Technologies

Software as a Service,Collaboration,Buzzword,SHARE

We here at the Adobe Education Technologies blog use this stuff all time. Attend tomorrow's eSeminar to find out how you might:

Hear how Acrobat.com can make you more collaborative from the visionary behind the product. Webinar: Wed, 6/24, 12-1 pm PDT

Description:
Meet Erik Larson the visionary leader behind Acrobat.com. We at Adobe have embraced Acrobat.com because it makes us more competitive and just makes work more enjoyable. Erik will share how Acrobat.com provides a fundamentally different and better way to work through stories and real-world examples. Come hear about the future of Acrobat.com and the vision behind the product. This will be an interactive session; Bring your questions and thoughts.

Details:
Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Time: 12-1pm PDT
Meeting URL: http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/comseminars

No registration required. Just click on the URL above or enter it into your browser.
More details are on the Acrobat.com blog: http://blogs.adobe.com/acom/

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 7:24 AM | Permalink

Widgets,Flash,Certificates

Adobe Captivate 4 has a new feature called "Widgets" which are a collection of Flash-created SWF files that you can add to your projects. Captivate ships with a bunch of them, and one of them in particular—the Certificate widget—is pretty fun. With it, you can offer a certificate to someone who passes a quiz you have created. There is even a button to print the certificate so you can proudly display your certificate of completion. We here at the Adobe Education Technologies blog built one called the Certificator, and you can see it in action by clicking the following link (link to the certificator: http://se.adobe.acrobat.com/certficator/). To learn more about how this was created, grab the Captivate project files, and start learning how to create your own widgets, read on. . .

Continue reading "Some Widget fun with Captivate 4" »

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe CS4 enterprise deployment resources,Adobe CS4 deployment toolkit,Adobe Installation and Licensing Blog,Adobe Forums,Adobe Support Advisor,Adobe CS4 Clean Script,imaging,silent installation,silent uninstallation,disable updater,disable service extensions

One of the goals of the Adobe Education Technologies blog is to provide access to Adobe resources in a concise form. Adobe.com has many great resources to help education IT departments deploy Adobe Creative Suite 4 across their enterprise, yet this information is not consolidated. So here you go:

Adobe Creative Suite Help and Support Home Page
http://www.adobe.com/support/creativesuite/

Adobe Creative Suite Forums
http://forums.adobe.com/community/creativesuites

Adobe Installation and Licensing Blog
http://blogs.adobe.com/OOBE/

Adobe Support Advisor
http://www.adobe.com/support/loganalyzer/

Adobe CS4 Deployment Toolkit and Guide
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/creativesuite/

• Adobe CS4 Deployment Toolkit TechNote
  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405452.html

Adobe CS4 Enterprise Manual Deployment Guide
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/openoptions/pdfs/manualenterprisedeployment_cs4_help.pdf

• Adobe CS4 Deployment TechNote
  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405714.html

• Adobe CS4 Clean Script TechNote
  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/406/kb406241.html

• Adobe CS4 Imaging Technology Limitations TechNote
  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405453.html

• Adobe CS4 Silent Installation TechNote
  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405451.html

• Adobe CS4 Silent Uninstallation TechNote
  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/403/kb403994.html

• Disable Adobe CS4 Updater TechNote
  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/408/kb408711.html

• Disable Adobe CS4 Service Extensions TechNote
  http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404813.html

Happy Installing!

Posted by Patrick Koster at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe Education Technologies,professional development,CS4,Adobe Creative Suite 4,Adobe Digital School Collection,Adobe Acrobat Conect Pro,Adobe Presenter

Adobe, in partnership with Knowledge Network Solutions (KNS), is offering expert, instructor-led workshops that focus on integration of Adobe tools into all academic curriculum. The curriculum integration workshops include the use of Adobe Creative Suite and Adobe Digital School Collection software for innovative teaching of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) topics as they relate across the academic curriculum. A staff development workshop addresses the use of Adobe Acrobat Connect and Adobe Presenter software to create and deliver your own rich, interactive staff development to widely dispersed educators. To learn more about this new offer along with terms and conditions please review our professional development web page and datasheet.

Posted by Patrick Koster at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is a storm brewing, folks, and it isn't going to just blow over. As fuel prices (here in the US anyway) start the uphill, summer climb, budgets for travel sink lower, and the amount of work we need to accomplish at very best stays the same, we need to figure out how to do our jobs while working with our colleagues around campus or around the globe. We here at the Adobe Education Technologies blog have been asked to do more of our work from home, and we love it! However, it is difficult to confer and present with colleagues because we often need to edit the presentation together, yet there is no way to justify the trip across the country to do so. When the economy turns around, among the strewn bits of jetsam that any storm leaves, we need to find a better ways to work corroboratively, pick them up, and use them make our work more efficient in any economy.

Adobe is noticing this along with everyone else—and we are doing something about it. The latest effort has me floored. It's called Adobe Presentations and it's a true software as a service (SaaS) product. If you have ever worked with PowerPoint or Keynote, then you will know what it does. However, it's the "how-it-does-it" that has us floored. First off, you can give it a spin by going to the new labs site of Acrobat.com. Link to Adobe Presentations. Take a look at the Welcome presentation sample that you can use to get started (this a PDF exported from that presentation and uploaded to SHARE):

However, to understand how this will become a new port in the coming storm, read on.

Continue reading "Adobe == Collaboration" »

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Accessibility,Closed Captioning

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 1:41 PM | Permalink

OK. Let's face it. Money is in short supply. As we face one of the most significant economic challenges we as a country have ever faced, we need to look beyond hoping things get better so we can just get back to business as usual. Moving to electronic workflows seems like an attractive option, but the key is your workflow--not just the fact that you are using something electronic. Remember, electrons cost money and use power as you corral them for your use. Have a look at the enterprise sustainabililty white paper co-produced by the Institute for Sustainable Communication. Link to the white-paper landing page.

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 3:03 PM | Permalink

Adobe Education Technologies,Acrobat 9 Pro,PDF Portfolios,ePortfolios,Multimedia,Video,Movies,Flash,Audio,Sound,3D Content,Web Content

With Adobe Flash Player integration within the new Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro and Adobe Reader 9, PDF files can become far more than static documents and forms. PDF portfolios (which are special types of PDF files) can be created to deliver a wide range of engaging multimedia content to include music, photos, movies, Flash (SWF and FLV) content, 3D content, and much more. The interface used to experience the PDF portfolio content is a Flash-based navigator with different layouts. Steve Adler (Adobe Acrobat Specialist for Education) has a fantastic blog article explaining how to create PDF portfolios and their possible uses in K-12 and Higher Education environments. Below I have provided five PDF portfolio examples which you can download and view offline using the free Adobe Reader 9 or a trial version of Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. Examples include:

• biology thesis portfolio
• portfolio of college application forms
• design student portfolio
• high student portfolio
• marine biology course portfolio

Once you have viewed these PDF portfolios, try creating one yourself using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. You can use Steve Adler's blog article as a guide or watch a recorded webinar. Also, there are new PDF portfolio navigator layouts you can download and start using for your projects.

Posted by Patrick Koster at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Kuler,Illustrator,Color,Community Pulse

Have you worked with Kuler yet? Before you read too much further, go try it out (link to Kuler).

You can also access it directly inside Adobe Illustrator CS4 as a way to get inspired about or just share color (see how). We here at the Adobe Education Technologies blog use it on occasion when we are looking for our own inspiration, and we were pleasantly surprised at the latest update to Kuler called Community Pulse.

The screenshot shows Community Pulse in action, namely the popularity of colors downloaded in the USA (l) and Brazil (r) in Spring 2008. Larger circles and bars indicate more popular colors (i.e., themes with those colors were downloaded more often).

Continue reading "Kule New Feature in Kuler!" »

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 10:24 AM | Permalink

We here at the Adobe Education Technologies blog are in full Holiday swing! To celebrate this season of giving, we wanted to share with you a great Connect Professional resource that Adobe offers to our Connect customers, the Connect Pro Resource Center. This is a web site with a variety of excellent resources for you to get the most from your online class, meeting, presentation, or portal built with Adobe Acrobat Connect.

Read on . . .

Continue reading "In the spirit of giving: Connect resources for you!" »

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 12:00 PM | Permalink

XFL,Adobe InDesign CS4,Adobe Flash CS4 Professional

In a previous Adobe Education Technologies blog article we examined how to use Adobe InDesign CS4 to create a visually rich layout, add interactivity with hyperlinks, buttons, and page transitions, and then export to SWF. We were able to do all of this without using Adobe Flash Professional and Actionscript programming. The downside of this direct-to-SWF export is that there isn't an easy way to edit the SWF file should we want to further modify it.

Now, Adobe InDesign CS4 allows designers to create multi-page layouts and then export to the new XFL (XML for Flash) file format. The XFL file can be opened directly in Adobe Flash CS4 Professional preserving layout and typographic fidelity. Then developers can enhance the file with animation, interactivity, and video. Let's take a look at the workflow:

Continue reading "XFL: Bringing Designers and Developers Together Since 2008" »

Posted by Patrick Koster at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you have heard of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (aka AIR), but wondered what it might be good for, then you are probably not alone. Instead of going on about it, I thought an eLearning example might help. In fact, an award-winning example might help even more, so I am going to send you from the Adobe Education Technologies blog over to my good freind RJ Jacquez' blog. A Captivate presentation on the AIR application itself is also available. It takes a moment to load, but it is worth the wait.

Keep in mind that here at Adobe we have a number of really useful blogs out there, ours the best, though, so keep on coming back.

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Acrobat 9,PDF,portfolios,electronic forms,Presenter 7

The Adobe Education SE Team hosted a series of education-focused sessions covering various Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro and Pro Extended features and workflows. If you missed the live sessions or want to see them again, take a look at the recordings listed below:

• Interactive PDFs with Adobe Acrobat 9
  http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p27737015/
• Electronic review and collaboration with Adobe Acrobat 9
  http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p27737015/
• eForms with Adobe Acrobat 9
  http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p15262120/
• ePortfolios for students and educators with Adobe Acrobat 9
  http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p21811377/
• An In-depth Look at PDF Creation
  http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p78644014/
• eLearning with Presenter 7 in Acrobat 9
  http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p89418989/

Posted by Patrick Koster at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 5:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am almost as excited as Steve Martin's character in The Jerk, when he danced around gleefully screaming, "The new phone books are here, the new phone books are here!" For those of you who don't share my taste in fine cinema - this is exciting! There are way too many fun, new toys to cover in a single post, but rest assured the team will be blogging about the wonders of CS4 soon. Till then I'll leave you with some fantastic resources on Adobe.com to get you acquainted with the new release;

• Creative Suite 4 main product page
• Creative Suite 4 for Education page
• Adobe TV (hours and hours of of video covering the new features)

Ciao.

Posted by Robert McDaniels at 6:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Continue reading "Successful VoIP in Connect Pro" »

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I will be presenting a free Adobe Education eSeminar on the topic of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro and Blackboard Integration on September 23, 2008. If you use Blackboard and have ever considered using a virtual classroom technology, you will want to see this one. Here is the official description of the presentation...

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 10:00 A.M. PDT
Extend the reach and scope of your online learning experience by using the advanced communication features of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro within the Blackboard learning environment. Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro offers an ideal platform for virtual classrooms or meetings and generally requires no additional software on end-user computers by employing Adobe Flash Player to enable the virtual meeting room. This complete solution for integrating Blackboard software (Release 7.3 and higher) with Adobe Connect Pro is now available for free to Blackboard or Adobe Connect Pro Administrators.

Click here to register for this event.

To learn more about the Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro and Blackboard Integration solution, please go to the Acrobat Connect Community Website Blackboard Integration FAQ.

You can also download the Blackboard integration solution brief or the LMS primer from the Adobe Acrobat Connect 7 education page.

TIP: The Adobe Connect User Community Website is a great resource for learning more about Adobe Acrobat Connect and/or virtual classroom technology.

Posted by John Schuman at 8:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You know that little graph in Photoshop, Lightroom, and on your digital camera called the Histogram? What does it tell you, and how can you use to rescue a boring photo? Watch my tutorial. We will cover this and check out some new features in Lightroom 2.0. Whoa, what about the FREE Lightroom pop quiz? Read on...

Continue reading "Clearing the Haze with Photoshop and Lightroom's Histogram, Bonus: Free Lightroom Pop Quiz" »

Posted by Robert McDaniels at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A great training resource is worth its weight in gold whether you are a novice user or a seasoned veteran working with an application. And Adobe Acrobat 9 is one of those programs so chocked full of feature goodness that many have yet to tap into the true potential of this "Swiss Army knife of Adobe software!" So time and again I am asked for a list of great Adobe Acrobat 9 resources and I have compiled some of the best in this article. My recommendation is to copy the links below into a MS Word document, save it to your computer, and explore at your leisure.

Continue reading "Training Resources for Adobe Acrobat 9" »

Posted by Patrick Koster at 5:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For those using Adobe Presenter 7 (if you are not familiar with Presenter, check out our previous blog entry Presenter Cards), you may have noticed an issue with quizzes.

Let's start with what you can do. In Presenter, you can build a quiz into your project to assess the students' attainment of the information. Each question in a quiz can be weighted and count towards an overall score. Based on that score, you can allow a user to pass or fail the quiz, and by choosing a behavior, have them jump to a particular slide in the presentation or to a URL. Often the URL is either another Presenter project (moving them to the next level of material) or the URL of the project with the quiz the userfailed to make them review the material. Either way, it is useful to employ the behaviors as instant feedback and action based on the results of a quiz. See an example by clicking on the following link: Quiz Example. Attached to the quiz is the PowerPoint project file (I didn't use any audio to keep the file small. Feel free to experiment with it).

Continue reading "Adobe Presenter 7 quiz issue" »

Posted by Timothy Plumer Jr at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Acrobat.com,Buzzword,Collaborate,ConnectNow,Share,Web Conferencing

Acrobat.com

Adobe recently made available a collection of online services for file storage and sharing, collaborative document authoring, and web conferencing. Best of all, anyone can sign up for a free account at www.acrobat.com!

My Files

Once you create an Acrobat.com account you can easily upload a wide variety of files to include Microsoft Office documents and presentations, PDF files and portfolios, images, and ZIP files. Your account allows up to 5GB of online storage which you can easily access from any internet-connected computer.

Share

Acrobat.com provides a better way for sharing your files. Select content stored on your account and share a link instead of emailing large file attachments. You can define access to your online files as private, for specific recipients, or available to anyone with the link. Recipients can preview the files and download when needed.

Adobe Buzzword

This new online word processor is creating quite a buzz! You get all the functionality of a desktop application with the added advantage of creating and storing your documents online. As an author you can invite others to join you as a co-author or reviewer. Each contributor's changes are saved into document history and you can revert to a previous version anytime. When you are finished with your document you can export and share as a TXT, RTF, Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, Open Office, or HTML file.

Adobe ConnectNow

Communicate and collaborate with up to two other particpants using your own personal online meeting room. You can be as interactive and productive as an in-person meeting using screen sharing, whiteboard overlays, notes, text chat, audio, video, and file sharing. You can even take control of a participant's desktop with their permission. This is a great solution for impromptu meetings, student tutoring, and parent/faculty sessions.

Call to Action

Acrobat.com provides many exciting ways for faculty, students, and parents to share, create, and collaborate. Since the services are online the constraints of time, location, and travel are mitigated. Feel free to share your experiences and best practices by adding comments to this article - we value your feedback!

Best Regards,
Patrick Koster

Posted by Patrick Koster at 8:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)