How Are We Doing? Introducing Adobe FormsCentral!

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Richard John Jenkins | Comments (2)

First on behalf of all of the Adobe Education Solution Consultants (formally Solution Engineers) who contribute to this blog a big and sincere Thank You for stopping by and learning about Adobe tools and technologies from us. We are all honored to have you here reading our post, posting comments and more.

Second I wanted to invite you to tell us how we’re doing here as authors and at the same time introduce you to a brand new online based tool we recently announced and made live called Adobe FormsCentral. Adobe FormsCentral is a new online service that lets you easily and quickly create and distribute online forms and surveys – including analyzing the results.

I’m really excited about FormsCentral because I believe powerful tools do not have to be complicated to get a job well done. In fact in my humble opinion powerful tools that are easy to use are the true mark of outstanding software craftsmanship. FormsCentral is powerful yet super easy to use too. That’s why to solicit your feedback here on our blog to help us all do a better job for you I used FormsCentral to create a quick and easy feedback form to have you tell us what future topics you’d like us to consider blogging about, get suggest from you on other ways we can improve the blog and continue to serve you better.

Note the link below will take you to a super short FormsCentral form that took me less than half an hour to design, test and distribute right here in this blog post. Now you may be thinking I have days and days of experience in FormsCentral to have been able to do this in half an hour – nope. The truth is I played around with FormsCentral for about one hour total and was creating nice looking forms within that hour and even posting them online!

You might also be wondering that this new tool cost a pretty penny. I’m happy to inform you there are two affordable subscriptions offered for FormsCentral and a third which is free!

To give the Adobe Education Technologies bloggers some feedback on the blog please click here; time to fill out the form is about three minutes or less.

To get started with FormsCentral click here to open a FormsCentral Account.

Happy FormsCentral form making!

Richard John Jenkins

Food + Technology = Adobe Digital Publishing

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Scott Trudeau | Comments (0)

I love food.  I love Adobe technologies.

Martha Stewart’s “Everyday Food” , a cooking and lifestyle magazine, is now available on the iPad.  This highly interactive magazine was put together using Adobe Digital Publishing technologies.  Check it out!

View YouTube video

Also check out the Adobe Digital Publish blog.  http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/

Digital Publishing Suite support for Android

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Tom Petrillo | Comments (0)

http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/2011/02/android-honeycomb.html

Installing CS5

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Timothy Plumer, Jr. | Comments (0)

Hey all,

We here at the Adobe Education Technologies blog have been fielding a lot of questions lately about installing CS5 across the whole, building, or school. Knowing that you certainly don’t want to be toddling around campus with DVD’s and serial numbers, we thought you might like to see this movie about using the Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition:

Deploying with AAMEE

Now, it requires a couple of things for you to use it effectively. First, you’ll probably want a licensing serial number. If you are installing in bulk, you should buy that way. If you are buying individual seats, then talk to your favorite reseller about our Licensing programs. Read more about them at the Adobe Volume Licensing page:

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/volumelicensing/

To actually deploy the software, you’ll need a deployment tool, like Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) or System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). To learn more about the process, check out the Adobe Enterprise Deployment page:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/creativesuite/enterprisedeployment.html

Finally, if you are an IT person looking to stay on top of what is happening with installers and such, I recommend that you bookmark our Installation and Licensing site blog:

http://blogs.adobe.com/oobe/

Enjoy!

Adobe InDesign – Path Animation

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Scott Trudeau | Comments (0)

Adobe InDesign is no longer “just” a desktop publishing tool; it has turned into a full-blown multimedia machine!  As a former teacher and educational technologist, I highly recommend adding InDesign CS5 to your instructional technology tool bag.

The following tutorial demonstrates how easy it is to build path animations using InDesign CS5.  Imagine how much more engaging a lesson on diffusion would be if a student could animate the process rather than simply read about it!

Video 1 – Learn how to create a simple path animation using InDesign CS5


Video 2 – Create a path animation and add duration and timing settings

Houston Area School Uses Adobe Technologies to Enter International Technology Contest

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Scott Trudeau | Comments (0)

Alief Taylor High School has entered a student-created video in an international technology contest that will hopefully win their school thousands of dollars worth of technology.  The video is currently in 2nd place only behind a South African school.

Robert Goetsch is Alief’s audio-video teacher.  He helped his students write, produce, shoot, and edit the video.  The students used Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, and Audition to help create the music parody. The final video is awesome! 

Voting has ended and Alief’s entry has made it into the 9-12 grade finalist!

View the video:
http://2010classroommakeover.shycast.com/submission/show/662

Prolific Powerhouse People: Teacher, Mike Skocko and the Mac Lab

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Richard John Jenkins | Comments (6)
Mike Skocko Keeps learning exciting and in balance in his Mac Lab

Valhalla High School teacher Mike Skocko keeps learning exciting and in balance in his Mac Lab.

 When it comes to learning Adobe software and technologies there is a fantastic cornucopia of terrific choices out there: great books, in-person seminars, online webinars, weekend hands on intensives and much, much more. I’m a visual learner so when it comes to my own way of learning Adobe tools I tend to gravitate towards one of the super online video offerings from companies like: KelbyTraining.com, VTC.com, TotalTraining.com, AtomicLearning.com, Lynda.com or our very own Adobe TV.

With the exception of Adobe TV mentioned above all of these training companies offer deep discounted education pricing to educators who subscribe to their offerings and in my humble opinion they are a super value. But what if I told you there is another source of terrific online video training available on Adobe tools and to access the videos it won’t cost you a dime?

Enter amazing prolific powerhouse Mike Skocko (pronounced skotch-ko) of Valhalla High School in El Cajon California who has produced and posted over 3,000 online video tutorials (no that’s not a typo – 3,000 and counting!) covering a wide range of Adobe tools and technologies. Best part, they’re totally FREE to watch and learn from. In fact Mike already has close to 300 videos on many of the current Adobe CS5 tools posted online and adds new ones daily.

Mike stated to me recently (and in the most humble way) he would have had near five hundred videos posted on the Adobe CS5 tools by now but since he was recently derailed by being accepted into Adobe’s Education Leaders (AEL) program and simultaneously started work on a Masters Program along with his fulltime teaching duties at Valhalla High, he’s only been able to add one video tutorial post per day. One per day!?  Five per week!?  Twenty per month!? Are you kidding me Mike!? I’m lucky if I can find the time to write three blog posts here on the Adobe Education Technologies Blog per month! So now dear blog readers you know why Mike has been picked by me as a Prolific Powerhouse Person here on our blog.

I encourage you to check out Mike’s excellent videos on Adobe’s software tools and share this great and free learning resource with your students and education associates far and wide.

The Mac Lab’s Online Adobe Software Tutorials can be found HERE.

Check out a cool interview Mike conducted with one of his former Students HERE.

Project Rome for Education, public preview announced today

Posted on October 24, 2010 by John Schuman | Comments (2)


We’re excited to finally announce Project ROME for Education. Available as a pilot program for school districts, Project ROME for Education lets students and educators express, collaborate and communicate ideas using graphics, photos, text, video, audio and animation in a simple, unified content creation and publishing environment to enhance the learning experience.   Project ROME for Education is designed specifically for students in classroom settings.

If you are interested in having your school district or institution participate, please go to http://rome.adobe.com/education and register.  Eligibility criteria must be met for program acceptance.  A member of the Adobe Education will contact qualified applicants with further information.  Those in education who wish to try out Project ROME for Education individually can also go to http://rome.adobe.com/education to download the offering as part of the free preview program.

Check back here soon for much more information on Project Rome for Education!


Acrobat X is Here!

Posted on October 18, 2010 by Steve Adler | Comments (0)

Acrobat Box imageThe New Acrobat X is finally here! What can it do for education?

Acrobat X has been re-tooled to provide easier access to tools and more powerful features that are just right for education. For more info, visit the Acrobat in Education Blog

Captivate 5 – Branching

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Scott Trudeau | Comments (0)
Captivate 5 Branching

Captivate 5 Branching

I love Adobe Captivate.  Captivate 5  makes it easy to set up projects with branching-based scenarios.  This is great for all kinds of education technology applications, tutorials, etc.  Learn how with this brief tutorial.