Adobe Education Leaders

A few weeks ago one of our teachers I had trained came up to me at a science curriculum meeting and asked if there was any training planned for Adobe Connect Pro.  She had been in one of my training courses over a year ago and quickly became one of our most avid users.  Her IB class met for reviews before tests during after school hours and often collaborated with teachers and classes at other schools around the country.  She had colleagues at Suncoast High School (one of the top public high schools in the country) that were interested in learning how to do the great things she did with her classes.

Participants with cams test the system.

I told her I would create one and invite other schools and departments that had expressed interest.  Within a couple weeks I had a class of 17 coming from diverse backgrounds and needs.  My class is run online through our Moodle installation, but the actually training is done completely through Adobe Connect Pro.  Participants log into the system and I use the desktop share to immerse them in the program as they learn about it.  It increases their comfort level immediately when they see how easy it is to get started.

Before our third class an IB Economics teacher in the course called me with some questions about Connect.  As we talked, she expressed that she wasn’t sure how she might use it in her class.  I told her about my favorite use, bringing guest speakers into the class via Connect.  We talked about contacts she had and found that a friend of hers works in the Federal Reserve.    Suddenly, the lights went on in her head and the excitement in her voice told me that her class would be doing many field trips through Adobe Connect Pro.  Recording a session like that can make the experience available for other classes and schools any where in the world.

A little over a week ago I was doing a short presentation about Adobe Connect Pro at another local high school.  I mentioned the free app for Connect and within minutes several teachers were raising their IOS and Android phones in the air showing the online meeting.  They were amazed that students that were out of school for extended illness or attending events could still participate in class with nothing more than a smartphone.

While Adobe has so many great products, I really feel that Connect Pro is the best educational tool in their arsenal.  With it you can demonstrate any program as we often do with our AEL meetings.  You can bring in guests to speak from any where in the world and excite students about topics with collaborative projects.  Adobe has also made some very great pricing structures for K-12, making it a bargain in tough economic times.

One of my favourite features in the current version of Lightroom is the ability to apply automatically detected lens profiles to make corrections to images. After years of manually correcting barrel distortion in Photoshop, I can now make these corrections with one click. An incredible time saver for myself and my students.

Each year our photography students produce a photo book using Blurb Books as part of their final year portfolio. The workflow between Lightroom and Blurb’s desktop software is now tighter than ever. Some while ago, Blurb released a plugin for Lightroom that allows you export directly to your book template from within Lightroom. You can also re-edit your images directly from Lightroom and see the updated changes in your Blurb template. Added to this you can customise your layout, change your image order, edit text, and make two-page photo spreads from inside Lightroom. For our students this makes Lightroom the ideal companion for their book projects. Combining this with soft proofing using Blurb’s ICC profile in Photoshop, (whilst a round trip out of the workflow) can yield good results on calibrated monitors.

See lens correction samples  here

During the last week of July, ~90 Adobe Education Leaders from around the world came together at Adobe HQ in San Jose, California for a week of networking, sharing, collaboration, and numerous other activities. Since having the opportunity to begin work as an AEL in late 2008, I always look forward to this event. While completely exhausting by week’s end; there is really no other experience that comes close to this!

Monday evening marked a great reception at the Fairmount. Great to catch up with other AELs that were present last year, new AELs or those I hadn’t met previously, and many of the good people at Adobe I’ve worked so closely with over the past year.

Tuesday was full of information and presentations from Adobe product managers, creative directors, and platform managers. This marked some of my personal favorite sessions as we were given the opportunity to learn details on upcoming products, the general roadmap* and outlook for the Flash Platform (impressive!), and even demo sneaks of some KILLER upcoming technology enhancements. We also were treated to an excellent presentation on some items the Adobe XD team is working on.

Wednesday is reserved for AEL sessions; over 80 hours of these presentations were recorded and will be made available on the Adobe Education Leader AdobeTV channel later this year. I gave my talk on Using Collaborative Media Services with Flash in University Applications and it was very well received. Really, all of the talks I attended were quite compelling and covered a wide range of areas – looking forward to catching up on those sessions I missed.

Thursday consisted of some longer sessions on industry and product-specific hands-on trainings. I attended the industry track all day and there was some really compelling stuff presented. Some of the highlights include an update from SoDA and an overview of how the upcoming digital publishing workflow for devices will be done (Yeah, the WIRED iPad stuff!)

On Friday morning we had our quarterly meeting followed by a wrap-up session. Those AELs who were not physically present in San Jose were able to attend through a live Connect session.

This was my second Institute and was the fifth overall. What an absolutely stellar time! Many, many thanks to the Adobe Education Team and all the AELs who helped make this event so memorable. Some of you reading this might think I am being far too positive about such a “corporate relationship” and perhaps some corrupting influence is being spread at events such as this. As fellow AEL, Phil Ice, has written: “I am certain there are some who are reading this blog who believe that the purpose is to turn people in education into marketing machines – nothing could be further from the truth.” It’s a beneficial relationship for everyone involved and Adobe does HIGHLY value the education community. Thank you again, Adobeans, for listening to us and being receptive to even our harshest criticisms! I do hope to see many of you either at Adobe MAX in October, or at some other event very soon.

* Don’t let anyone tell you Adobe is “lazy” when it comes to Flash Player and the overall platform. Things are about to accelerate beyond anything we’ve seen in the past couple of years!

The premiere educational technology conference, ISTE 2010 (formerly called NECC) took place In Denver Colorado this summer from June 27 – 30. The conference was THE place to be for anyone who is serious about improving teaching and learning to meet the needs of our students in this 21st century. Over 18,000 people participated in the conference. As common with large trade shows, the event was filled with workshops, speakers, virtual events utilizing things like webcasts and social media sites and of course, the exhibit hall with vendors galore.

My role at the conference was two-fold. First, I presented a 3 hour workshop on Video Production using my favorite editing software, Premiere Elements. Second, I hung out in the Adobe booth in my capacity of Adobe Education Leader, meeting and greeting educators from all over the world. Sharing our experiences is always enriching and leaves me energized and eager to get back to the classroom and try out the new ideas!

If you were unable to attend the conference in person, you can still experience some of the conference, as your own time schedule permits, in these ways:
Webcasts:
Virtual webcasts from Denver, Colorado including other videos from other events such as last February’s HP Innovations in Education Worldwide Summit can be found here:
http://www.istevision.org/
Online Community:
ISTE has created a NING community online for the conference. Just go to www.iste2010.org to read what’s being shared – or join and participate. It’s free and an easy way to connect with other educators who share common interests.
Twitter:
Tweets from the conference will include the “hasthtag” #ISTE10 (note: some people are also using the unofficial hasthtag #ISTE2010). Then point your browser to either http://search.twitter.com. You can also use a website that refreshes itself like www.tweetgrid.com or www.twitterfall.com.
Next year’s ISTE Conference “Unlocking Potential” will be held in Philadelphia from June 26 – 29 at the Pennsyvania Convention Center. More information about participation and everything else concerning the conference can be found at: http://www.isteconference.org/2011/ If you have never attended this major conference, or if you have been thinking about presenting, now is the time to start planning!