Adobe Education Leaders

My students, their parents and our business advisory board are all very excited about earning the Adobe Certified Associate credentials. Of course I want all my students to be successful so I have been searching for resources that will provide my students with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Here is a list of what I have found.

Study Guides
Did you know that Adobe has posted detailed study guides for each exam at: http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/ace/ These are .pdf files with both written tutorials and the sample files for the lessons all wrapped up in one Adobe Acrobat file!

Adobe Curriculum
Adobe has worked closely with classroom teachers like myself to develop curriculum that is aligned with the ISTE standards and teacher tested.
http://www.adobe.com/education/resources/k12/instructional/
Visual Design is a yearlong, project-based curriculum that develops career and communication skills in print production and graphic design, using Adobe tools.
Digital Design is a yearlong, project-based curriculum that develops IT career skills in web design and production, using Adobe tools.

Adobe TV
It is time that instructors learned about this incredible resource. Adobe has developed hours of fantastic instructional video resources and offers it free through the Adobe Media Player. Check out all that they have to offer at:
http://tv.adobe.com/channel/students-educators

Learn by Video
This is the first resource that I have found that is specifically design to prepare students for the ACA exam. It has a easy to use interface, tutorials that you download to your iPod and well delivered content that will help your students prepare for the exam. I have really appreciated the book that accompanies this because it helps to explain the non-software specific topics covered on the exam. I also appreciate the test at the end of each unit both monitoring my students progress and helping them prepare for the type of exam questions they will face in the real ACA exam.

Classroom in a Book
Of course these books have been around for year providing a great resource for students and teachers. They provide great instruction on the application but you will need to supplement the lessons to fully prepare your students for the exam.

Online Software Training
If you or your students are looking for high quality online training on Adobe software then I strongly recommend the following resources:
Lynda.com: http://www.lynda.com/Member.aspx
Total Training: http://www.totaltraining.com/
Atomic Learning: http://www.atomiclearning.com/
Of course my own software workshops (free): http://www.mountsihighschool.com/directory/_dockeryj/conferences/index.html

Professional Development
Faculty workshops through Knowledge Network Solutions
Master education consultants from Knowledge Network Solutions come to your school to run workshops for faculty on how to use Adobe tools and effectively integrate them into their courses. Workshops are available to higher ed and K-12 institutions.

For more information about the Adobe Certified Associate Exam go to:
http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/ace/

Posted by Joe Dockery at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe just released free exam study guides to prepare students and educators for the new Adobe Associate Certifications. In addition, Adobe Press has released three new offerings in the Learn by Video series.

The free exam study guides include:

- Web Communication using Adobe Dreamweaver CS4
- Rich Media Communication using Adobe Flash CS4
- Visual Communication using Adobe Photoshop CS4

Versions for the older CS3 are also available.

The Learn by Video series includes:

- Learn Adobe Photoshop CS4 by Video: Core Training in Visual Communication
- Learn Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 by Video: Core Training in Web Communication
- Learn Adobe Flash CS4 Professional by Video: Core Training in Rich Media Communication

See details>

Posted by Johann Zimmern at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the business side, I must stress the importance of arriving on time for the contest and staying until the end of the contest. As a practicing professional, I am always hoping for a little extra time to polish a site for a client. Those that left early should have used the extra time to improve upon their work. Less than 25% stayed for the optional briefing after the conclusion of the contest where we shared a significant amount of information. One of the main differentiators many employers look for is passion and dedication in their employees. Staying for the debriefing confirms a desire to learn and improve.

It is also important to verify that your work has been properly copied. In many instances, although given the opportunity to check their work on the USB drive used to collect the final entries, very few opened more than the initial folder. Attention to detail is an issue of major importance as several sites had inadvertently pointed to a folder on their desktop (which will not work when the challenges are judged). This leads to broken links to images and CSS (and lost points).

Part of the competition also included an interview. As an aspiring professional, it is permissible to state that you do not know the answer to a given question but would like to find out more about it. Less than 10% of those presented with such a question took that approach (the remainder tried to guess their way through without success).

On the technical side, there was a heavy reliance upon tools (which is fine – provided one understands how to use those tools effectively). Of the tools used, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 captured the major share (being used by over 85% of all participants). However, it is clearly evident that there is only a superficial knowledge of how to use the selected tool (resulting in errors such as pointing to an absolute location [on the desktop] for an image or CSS document). Likewise, reliance on templates (such as the Spry framework for the JavaScript challenge) is permissible, but one should definitely test prior to submitting (to make certain regions are properly defined in the HTML). Similarly, if there is a challenge to create a two column layout using only CSS, one should not use a Dreamweaver layout table to accomplish that challenge.

The quality of code is important (for example, there is no p2 element; there should not be HTML body elements placed above the DOCTYPE declaration). With the majority of contestants using Dreamweaver, one can easily test for valid code (and the tool actually helps one write such code). Unfortunately, it would appear that this feature was not employed on most challenges.

In my work with numerous business and industry professionals, it is clear they are looking for individuals who have a solid understanding of web standards and can use tools to effectively accomplish tasks. This is why the individual challenges were selected for this contest.

I implore those educating the next generation of web professionals to focus on the following areas to better prepare students for the workforce.

• Develop a good understanding of web standards (and why they are important – for maintainability of the code, for improved search engine ranking, for increased accessibility and all the other reasons). Tools are important, but students need to know the fundamentals before they can effectively employ those tools.
• Increase the emphasis on web accessibility and usability in the curriculum.
  Increase the emphasis on professional behaviors (arrive on time, test your work before turning it in, admit when you don’t know something and so forth).
• Help students develop a solid understanding of the use of the appropriate tool and when one must go beyond a given tool.

It is up to us as educators to raise the bar to help our students succeed in the workplace.

Posted by Mark DuBois at 6:14 AM | Permalink

Simmons Career Center is a little different than most traditional high schools. Simmons is for students who want to learn a trade and get out of school as quickly as possible. Eligible students are at least a year behind and in jeopardy of dropping out of school. Unfortunately, for a majority of our students, poor success in school has also led to other destructive behavior outside of school. Like many other schools, we have gang members, students with criminal records, and students who struggle with poverty. Students who are able to manage their personal challenges and reach the Web Design IV class are required to do a project based exit activity to complete the program. The students act as a web design firm and work with a real client from start to finish. The guidance counselor referred a woman from a non‐profit agency called Advocates for a Safer Community to be our real life example. Before long, we found ourselves learning a lot about choices in life.

A tall slender woman came into the conference room where the students were all seated. We all stood and introduced ourselves and began by discussing how the web site should look and feel. Mrs. Saunders began to pull out news articles and pictures from her bag and spread them across the table. Each article and photo represented a young person who was murdered within the city limits of Tampa, Florida. Case by case, the students, by their own accord, began reading the articles and looking at the pictures. The students very quickly realized their project would have a significant impact on others’ lives. From that very first meeting, our students began to feel really needed.

Mrs. Saunders pulled out a picture and began to tell us how “he didn’t like getting his picture taken, so that was the best she could find”. One student asked, "Who is he?” She replied, “My son”. Mrs. Saunders started the organization after her son was murdered while waiting outside for a friend to come out and play. Mrs. Saunders pulled out another photo of her son. She said,” I like this one because he was not wearing a hat.” I could actually see and feel a change as my students empathized with this complete stranger and accepted her burden as their own.

The meeting was over and the students brought the notes back to the classroom. We began to discuss and build low level storyboards on roll paper. A couple of the students began to get nervous about doing such an important project, but we kept them on it anyway. Everyone agreed the pictures of the victims needed to be improved in Photoshop to make the faces larger and easier to see. We decided to create a Flash file that would have the mission and information in a center box with thumbnail images of all the victims presented. The students wanted every victim to be equally as important on the home page. As the user moved the mouse over the thumbnails, the center would change to a larger picture of the victim. We also included the name, the date of their death, and whenever possible, a word that family and friends used to describe the victim. There were links included to get more information about each case.

Now the hard part, there were nearly three hundred cases. Students began the tedious task of scanning pictures and recreating articles to build the Flash file and sub‐pages. One might think, or at least I did, that the students would eventually return to being unmotivated and lazy, with poor attendance and off task behavior. The opposite was true; the students were giving up their lunch, coming in early, and
finishing work in their other classes so they could work on the website. The seniors’ last day was fast approaching and the students were feeling the crunch. I offered to finish the project so they could enjoy some of the senior events and the last couple of days with their friends and none of my students would accept my offer. The last day for seniors came and there were still some finishing touches we needed to do. The seniors showed up to school as volunteers and worked on the project. When we sat with Mrs. Saunders to review and get her feedback, she was very surprised. One of our students even used Photoshop to edit the picture of Mrs. Saunders’ son. The student removed the hat and re‐created her son’s hair and features from the other photo where he was not wearing a hat.

In nine years of teaching, I have never seen dedication like my students gave to this project. What made the outcome even better were the conversations the students had with each other while working. These students discussed choices, their future and options for themselves. Nine weeks earlier, these same students were talking about who fought whom and their crazy weekends. No one could have predicted that a project used to teach Dreamweaver, Flash and Photoshop could actually change my students’ lives.

Michael Sawyer
Technology Resource Teacher
Simmons Career Center

Posted by at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As well as playing with Flash to get my seminar presentation on line in a fashion that sort of reproduced the look and feel of the Keynote in which it was created, I have spent the last couple of weeks getting my end of year exhibition up on our departmental website - a job that I do every summer.

So I thought that I might share the process for any who may be interested.

The site is http://www.artatsidcotschool.org.uk and the link is to ‘current exhibition’ (the site is a bit wobbly at the moment, so if it is down try later...)

If you click on ‘digital’ at the bottom of the page, and ‘Key Stage 3’ at the bottom of the menu, you will get examples of the different galleries that I have created.

For much of the work I simply edited the photos in a combination of Aperture and Photoshop - I guess that I should be using Lightroom, but Aperture came out first...

Most of the galleries were then created directly from Aperture - very simple and very quick to do, but not much in the way of templates. I am sure that I could as easily have used Lightroom, and Photoshop has lots of templates for web galleries - lots of choice for simple web galleries these days. The Yr 7 Land Art is an example of this sort of gallery.

For galleries with lots of images, I used a Dreamweaver plug in called Image Gallery Pack from a company called Project 7. They do lots of cool plugins for Dreamweaver. The menu on the digital page is also from them - Popup menu magic. I really like their concertina plugin too. The Holborne Museum photos are an example of this type of gallery.

The book effect in the Time Capsule project has been created with a bit of software called Banner Zest Pro from Aquafadas - with the images created pretty directly from Acrobat files. The project itself was originally created with Comic Life from Plasq. A slightly cheaper alternative is a Flash plugin called FlippingBook, but this is a little more comlex to use.

Another example of Banner Zest Pro is the kiost effect in the GCSE panel - either Meg or Sasha’s photos, or Holly’s (my daughter...)

And finally the animations and films that have been put together using the template that I created for the seminar presentation, which is done in Flash, with an extra component called TweenMax. I can offer instructions and a template if folk would like - contact me.
ross.wallis@virgin.net

In terms of showing good practice in relation to digital photography, the work of Alex Hughes-Games is spectacular. I have included flipbook versions of his workbook/journals - but in order to keep them to a reasonably sensible size I have had to compromise on quality, so they may be hard to read. Useful on a mac is the alt apple = shortcut that magnifies text (if it is on in preferences). There is also three of the movies that he created with a binary application called mathmap.

The Paris photos of Nathan Al’Shebab are worth a look too. He has created a beautiful website to display them using msql and php.

Because these journals will be really useful to me (and I hope others) in demonstrating good practice to future students, I have also included one as an Acrobat 9 portfolio (thank you Adobe - thank you Steve) The downsite is that it weighs in at 25.6mb.

It strikes me that acrobat - the portfolio, and form creation are a simply perfect digital solution for the International Baccalaureate record book.

- Ross

Posted by Ross Wallis at 4:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had the honor of being a sailing mentor to three blind women for a day. My yacht club sponsored our first sailing event for the visually challenged. Five vessels went out with at least three eager blind adults, two experienced crew and a sighted helper, on each boat.

After one of the crew guided the boat out into the marina, the helm was to be turned over to our guests, one at a time. One young lady who was with us, Kelly, had been sailing a couple of times. Since this was my first time handing the wheel over to someone who could not see, I felt better with Kelly starting the rotation while we were inside the marina.

It was a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon and was very crowded in the marina. Kelly began by talking to me about what she heard around us. She knew there was a powerboat on our left, and she heard something on our right. It was another sailboat, not making any more noise than a little water rushing by the hull. I was amazed already.

I fed her information on where we were in the marina, drawing the layout on the palm of her hand, mentioned how far it would be before we would have to tack (turn the boat so we would not hit the breakwater), and how hard she would have to turn the wheel. She commented that she could feel the wind on her left cheek, and correctly announced that we were on port tack.

(Note: While sailing, the boat is on port tack when the wind flows over the left side of the boat and the boat is on starboard tack when the wind flows over the right side of the boat.)

After my guidance through one set of port and starboard tacks, she was feeling the wind move to her opposite cheek, counted the spokes to turn the steering wheel (her idea) and to get the steering wheel back to the center, off she went tacking her way out of the marina to the open ocean. There was very little input from me. She knew when the boat was sailing at its’ best and adjusted the wheel when she needed to.

When our next blind guest, Barbara, took the wheel, she had been listening to our conversation. Barbara had never been on a boat before. She began by telling me what she heard, asked when we needed to make our first tack, and counted the spokes to turn. She then began timing her tacks, knowing when we needed to go the other way. I was amazed once again. She guided the boat as if she had been doing it for years.

Soon our sighted helper took the wheel to give it a try. She immediately turned the boat head to wind (the bow facing directly into the wind where a boat cannot sail) and stopped our progress. I asked her where she was going and she told me “over there!” pointing at the exit of the marina. She was, of course, the only one who could see it, so she decided to just go there. After an explanation that the boat could not sail in that direction, she needed continuous guidance to understand the theory of sailing and to keep the boat moving. She had no feel for what we had been doing at all.

By the end of the day, our blind guests drove the boat all over Santa Monica Bay, the open ocean, all with very little guidance from anyone. They got the feel of the boat no matter where the swells were coming from or what angle of sail we were on.

I was not sure who was mentoring who! I thought I was there to teach sailing to some blind women, but instead I learned about human spirit, and how our senses can help us overcome challenges.

Now, I am back at work designing a new Website for a client. All I can think about is how Kelly, Hildi, and Barbara utilized their abilities to “see” where we were going, sense what was around us, and how they handled a 36’ sailboat in the open ocean with very little input. I had never seen anything like it in my three years of teaching sailing.

How can this wonderful experience with my three blind mentors translate to the flat computer screen I am looking at? What can I learn from it to help me build a virtual three dimensional Web world that they can see, sense, and handle? It seems to me that learning to sail a 36 foot sailboat was easier for them than it is to sit down at a computer, go online and accomplish tasks. I feel, as a Web designer, I am one of the reasons it is so difficult for them. I want to see my friends enjoy their online experience as much as they did their day on the water.

I am not quite sure how to completely translate what I experienced a few days ago into the full Web experience that these ladies deserve. Just a little alt text won’t cut it anymore. I will have to work very hard to enrich my virtual experience designs to overfill their overextended senses.

I am working on it. Any ideas?

Posted by Kathryn St. Amant at 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Adobe just released information regarding the 2008 Adobe School Innovation Awards. The theme this year is “My Community – My Planet – My 21st Century.” The competition is open to high school students in grades 9-12.

Students can submit entries in three categories:
-Web Design & Development
-Film & Video
-Graphic and Print Design

Prizes include software, cash, a laptop computer, and a trip to NECC being held in San Antonio, Texas.

For more information…

Posted by Scott Trudeau at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Austin is a great city. The music and food are fantastic, the people friendly, and the traffic…well; umm…they’re working on it. Last week’s TCEA conference lived up to the high Austin standards I have come to expect. The event was well attended, offered many great workshops, and hosted a football-sized field of computer and technology vendors. Of course Adobe had a large presence and their booth was always jammed full of conference goers hoping to learn about the latest Adobe magic.

I had the opportunity to present three Adobe-themed workshops: Dreamweaver, Acrobat, and Photoshop. Each session was well attended by a slew of enthusiastic educators chomping at the bit to add to their bag of tricks. Yep, it was one whirl-wind of a week, and judging from the twinkle in their eyes, I would have to say that their students are in for some exciting stuff.

Now that I have had a few days to recover from my “Austin experience,” I can’t help but to think about the strange transition that is taking place regarding web design in education. The professional design community has been going through the CSS change for about 8 years now, but designing pages using Cascading Style Sheets has only recently trickled down into the high school web and multimedia classes. In fact, many teachers in the session were not familiar with the term CSS or had only just begin dabbling with learning how to use Cascading Style Sheets.

I like to “feel out” the skill level of my audience, so when I started to speak about CSS and eyes started to glaze over, I quickly switched gears and started teaching table-based layouts. Yep…I sold out. Much like a science teacher refusing to teach that Pluto is now a planetoid, I sold out.

About two years ago I decided to ditch table based layout and go strictly with CSS. Frankly, the transition was not an easy one and the time investment was huge. Learning all about the different browser quirks and hacks was enough to pull my hair out. Most of my time was spent trying to figure out why one page looked good in “browser A” but was completely blown out in “browser B.” Learning the ins-and-outs of CSS took time…lots and lots of time (and coffee, and aspirin, and more coffee).

But in hindsight, I should have stuck with my guns. A good teacher finds ways to teach hard content. A good teacher finds ways to reach both the struggling newbie and the seasoned brainiac. A good teacher doesn’t shy away from a hard topic. Next year I’ll be teaching CSS layout…and sticking with my guns! Next year teachers will be walking out with a twinkle in their eye and some new CSS tricks in their toolbox!

So, what learning materials (websites, books, etc.) have helped you learn more about desiging with CSS?

Posted by Scott Trudeau at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you need to publish photos online in a hurry, I suggest you check out the new slide shows available in Fireworks CS3. They are easy and quick to create. All you have to do is select the folder of photos you want to publish, choose a slide show design you like, specify your export options, and click “Create”. Fireworks will optimize all your images, write all your scripts, and build your slide show in a matter of minutes.

We’ve been studying about force and pressure this week in my science class – thought it was time to put my students in the “hot seat.” See the slide show.

Posted by Harry Williams at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)