Specifically, students from this year’s intake are pinpointing the provision of suitable libraries and technology as the main areas needing improvement, with two-thirds (63%) saying they expected to have access to more support facilities and services than they are actually getting.

Despite the fact that 96% of students said the number one reason they chose to go to university was to increase their chances of getting a job when they graduate, only a third (33%) think their university will help them do this now.

As a result, we are calling on Vice Chancellors to review their ICT strategies to help live up to their student’s digital demands.  Click on the infographic below to view all the key findings in detail:

For more information on how Adobe can help institutions live up to student demands visit www.adobe.com/uk/education.

To support institutions in meeting this demand, we’ve launched a new three year license agreement, the Eduserv Adobe ELA Framework Agreement. It means that both Further Education and Higher Education institutions will be able to provide access to Adobe’s latest Creative Suite software across the whole campus for the first time. Plus staff get it too!

We’re working with loads of leading institutions to help them deliver a strong digital offering. Here’s what a few have to say about the Eduserv Adobe ELA Framework Agreement:

 Kirk Laws-Chapman, Resources Manager, Norwich University College of the Arts:

“The new Eduserv Adobe ELA Framework Agreement has provided Norwich University College of the Arts with an affordable way to give our students access to latest industry standard software across the campus. Meeting expectations against a background of rising tuition fees is a challenge, and this is a great way for us to add value to the student experience here.”

Phil Purves – Senior Lecturer, Bath Spa University:

“I’m confident that a lot of current and future students will benefit the new Eduserv Adobe ELA Framework Agreement. In addition to saving the University money, it is giving us software consistency everywhere with the latest CS6 suite available on whatever machine is capable of running it. All our creative areas have been keen to support this new agreement. It’s going to make a huge difference.”

Steve Harvey, Arts University College at Bournemouth:

“The Arts University College at Bournemouth (AUCB) feels extremely privileged to be signed up to the Eduserv Adobe ELA Framework Agreement. It enables us to offer more access to industry standard software at a good price, but also helps with the strategic development of software maintenance to align Education and Business application deployment.”

 For more information on how to sign up to the agreement, check outwww.eduserv.org.uk/ela. To be included in the next entry point in November 2012, institutions must complete all paperwork by 24^th October.

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!

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.

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 .

 A product which I am hugely passionate about teaching is industry-standard animation software Adobe Flash.  Not just because it enables students to create some great animation, but also because of how engaged they are in it and the creative potential it allows them to explore. I have seen students become enthusiastic and excited about ICT who previously didn’t give it a second thought and the great news for us as a school is that our ICT grades have really improved as a result!

 One way I encourage creativity in my classes is to set a brief which is open-ended, so students can experiment with the tools and techniques and take it in any direction they want.  For example one project I have set at GCSE level is to design a 30 second pizza advert using animation, sound and graphics. The brief was deliberately vague, which really paid off as the adverts produced were all individual in style and incredibly creative – I may be biased, but I honestly believe they could easily be the product of a world class advertising agency!

 I would urge any teacher keen to explore iOS, Android and desktop app and computing development to focus time and energy on Adobe Flash... To hear more about how you can use Flash to enliven the school curriculum and see some practical examples of what we’ve done at my school watch this short presentation: http://eseminars.emea.acrobat.com/p88305918/

The unprecedented speed at which mobile and tablet devices are evolving is just mind blowing, as is the rate at which the integration of these technologies into everyday life and the workplace is happening. So it’s hugely important that schools mirror this. The digital creative skills that are essential to these industries should be a key part of preparing our young people for College, University and later on, their careers.

As a teacher, there’s nothing I love more than seeing my students have fun in the classroom. I get great pleasure in seeing them excel of course, but if they are passionate and can have fun whilst doing it, that’s even better. Integrating these sorts of digital tools into everyday lessons, means they do just that.

Renaldo Lawrence is an Adobe Education Leader, to find out more about this “quiet revolutionary” check out his profile on Merlin John Online: http://agent4change.net/innovators/864-the-innovators-24-renaldo-lawrence.html

Technological change continues at an exponential rate and every school pupil today has grown up with PCs and technology around them, unaware that a world before the internet ever existed. Traditional ICT classes, often run in isolation to the rest of the syllabus, no longer meet the needs of our young people, having stifled creativity and held back pupil progress.

We welcome the fresh approach to ICT. To have a real impact, schools must make technology integral to each and every part of the curriculum, incorporating it across the syllabus rather than treating it as a discrete subject. With the right framework and support from teachers, this approach has the potential to transform lessons by encouraging creativity and a deeper level of pupil engagement. Students will benefit from developing industry standard skills in preparation for University and the world of work.

And this is already happening. Through my role as education marketing manager at Adobe, I have seen many of the schools I work with succeed in increasing student engagement, attainment and employability, for example creating 2D animations in art, interactive web content in History classes, or using video editing and production software to create films in Media Studies.

To deliver this in the classroom, teachers need training and support. To help with this, we recently launched the Adobe Education Exchange, an online community which hosts a range of free, teacher-generated teaching and learning resources, developed by educators from around the world who are already integrating technology in the classroom with great success.

This proposed change to the curriculum is essential  if we are to prepare our young people for the world of work by taking a more creative approach to learning and teaching, making full use of today’s wealth of available technologies.