@ADOBEUK

After seven years in the planning, London 2012 is almost upon us. With the final preparations underway, I got thinking about a recent chat I had with Matt Snelson, Assistant Head at The County High School, Leftwich in Cheshire.

The school recently held its annual Media Arts Day, which this year was themed around The Olympics. The day saw students from Years 7 up to 11 all taking part in workshops spanning the entire curriculum. These included taking part in alternative sports in Physical Education, an Olympics Enterprise workshop in Maths lessons, Drama classes running Street and Chinese dance,  Olympic Song Writing in Music, and a whole host of creative workshops including clay-based animation and website creation to name but a few!

Several of the workshops involved pupils engaging with tools such as Adobe Creative Suite. For instance, Fireworks was used to create animations and Photoshop to make Olympics themed banners. Students also used Premiere Pro and After Effects to help put together a video wrap-up of the day, and Soundbooth to create a radio show for the school’s radio station LOL (Leftwich out Loud) FM. What a great way to get students experimenting with creative tools!

Have you done anything special to celebrate London 2012 with your school? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

We are now back from a jam-packed few days at the Adobe Digital Media Education Summit in Istanbul and wanted to tell you about the fantastic time we had!

The conference was a unique opportunity to hear from leading educators about how they implement digital media in film, video and design schools, as well as gaining insight into how technology ties into teaching goals.

We kicked the conference off on Tuesday evening with some welcome drinks at Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi, which gave us the opportunity to get to know the speakers and attendees we would be spending the next two days with.

Wednesday and Thursday were full of interesting workshops and heated debates, where we had the chance to hear from some of the best speakers in the industry including Andy Balzdell (CelAction), Lee Brimelow (Platform Evangelist, Adobe) and Sue Tong (The Illuminated Film Company).

Here’s a snapshot of what some of you were saying on Twitter:

Thanks so much to everyone that joined us in Istanbul – we couldn’t have done it without you.

If you haven’t joined our LinkedIn group yet then you can do so by clicking here.

This morning, as I was about to leave the house my Year 2 son reminded me he was going on a school trip to learn more about Mary Seacombe and Florence Nightingale.  Sadly I had forgotten to put his packed lunch in a plastic carrier bag, but once that situation was remedied we were on our way.

As I was driving to the office I was reflecting on how schools manage the communication with parents about school trips, and was reminded of an excellent example of how one school engages with parents using Adobe Connect.

At Chalfonts Community College they use Adobe Connect to set up online meetings for parents to log into from wherever they are – be that at home or at work. The teacher leading that trip then runs through a presentation (sometimes with video) which covers everything parents need to know about the trip.  Parents can even ask any questions they have throughout the session via the chat facility available with the software.

For more information on how Chalfonts is using Adobe Connect to plan for school trips, check out this SecEd article which was published last year:http://bit.ly/lGvp8F.

Following the exciting release of Adobe® Creative Cloud™ Student and Teacher Edition, and Adobe Creative Suite® 6 last month, I wanted to let you know about some fab new support resources we’ve made available for free to help you make the most out of the new software.

We’ve launched a brand new portal within the Adobe Education Exchange which hosts a raft of free resources and support to enable schools and colleges to enhance their classes and help prepare students for the workforce. Ranging from video tutorials and technical guides, to tried-and-tested curriculum plans, they are each designed to help you deliver rich learning experiences.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s available…

CS6 tutorials on Adobe TV

• These give you the means to learn at your own pace and showcase how Adobe software is being used in education. There are hundreds of videos to browse through, including tutorials which supplement the CS6 teaching resources

Curriculum guides

• These are free, year long, project-based curriculum plans, great for anyone teaching visual design, web design, and video production – and all newly updated for Adobe Creative Suite 6

Technical guides

• Quickly get up to speed on how to use CS6 by downloading these product technical guides

Tutorials from our Adobe Education Leaders

• These CS6 tutorials are developed by our very own Adobe Education Leaders around topics including digital imagery, graphic design & digital publishing, animation and rich media and web design

You can check these out for yourself by visiting: http://adobe.ly/J5g9I9 .

We’ve launched an exciting new initiative this week called Adobe Generation. In a nutshell, this is a series of four online courses (each lasting ten weeks), designed to teach UK students (age 14-19) key skills they will need to succeed in a range of creative careers. Games Design is the first course we are running, which we kicked off last night, and it’s developed by a fab team of teachers and industry experts from across the world.

As well as getting an insight into all the ins and outs of games design, students get to learn from some of the brightest creative talent around at the moment. Sessions are taught over Adobe Connect by different creative experts, including US games designer and educator Roxana Hadad, who teach a specific element of games design and give insights into their working lives. They also set weekly tasks for students to complete ahead of the next session, which are reviewed and commented on on a student forum.

For students looking to brush up on their skills in between sessions, we’ve made a bunch of web-based learning resources available, including video tutorials, ‘how to’ guides and a recording of each session. And if that wasn’t enough, we’re also giving a certificate to each student who completes the course – which will look great on their CVs and UCAS applications!

The Games Design course is running every Thursday from 7-8:15pm until July 12th– check out www.adobegeneration.com to sign up or to get more information.