Adobe Education Leader

Flash Platform Game Technology Center

2009-12-22T02:05:00.000-08:00

Adobe has launched a new site to support those interested in using the Flash Platform for creating games.

There are a number of articles and videos giving a comprehensive background to casual gaming and games development with the Flash Platform, as well as tutorials, samples and games to play.

Flash Platform Game Technology Center http://www.adobe.com/devnet/games/

New Video Production Resources from Adobe

2009-09-02T02:50:00.000-07:00

A new online resource centre for video production has been launched by Adobe. The site contains curriculum, projects, assets and tuttorials.

http://www.adobe.com/education/hed/resources/video/

Free Flex Book

2009-08-12T01:26:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in learning to create Rich Internet Applications (RIA), then get a head start with this free O'Reilly Book, Getting Started with Flex 3 courtesy of Adobe.

The book shows you how to construct an application that allows you to view photos from Flickr and also takes you through the basics of creating interfaces and making server connections.

Also available is the Learn Flex in a Week video training.

Adobe Education Leader Summer Institute 2009

2009-07-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

Sadly I can't make it to this year's Education Leader Institute at Adobe HQ in San Jose, however through the wonders of technology (Adobe Acrobat Connect) I was able to see the introductory speeches and also take part in one of the presentations.

My fellow Adobe Education Leaders Roxana Hadad and Ian Usher presented on their Game Design Workshop which they ran earlier this year, supporting students almost entirely virtually through Acrobat Connect and a Moodle VLE. I was invited to participate and presented as a guest lecturer on various methods of designing games. I was also able to participate through their VLE, posting to discussion boards and answering questions.

This was a great example of using technology to provide very engaging online learning, and it made it possible to bring in expertise from all over the world to share their knowledge of games design.

If only all our classes could be this good.

Flash Training Course - 16th June

2009-04-24T02:40:00.001-07:00

Carnegie College is hosting a training course in Adobe Flash on 16th June 2009.

This one-day course covers the development of Rich Media Interfaces with Adobe Flash.

Website interfaces are becoming increasingly complex, with greater demands for interactive and dynamic content, and this course aims to provide the skills to start creating these types of sites.

Intended for those with prior experience of using Adobe Flash, the course will look at using and controlling multimedia elements in Flash using ActionScript and XML.

More details and booking information here...

New Coldfusion curriculum from Adobe

2009-03-19T01:57:00.001-07:00

The new ColdFusion 8: Introduction and Advanced Development curriculum launched on the Adobe website today -http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/teach/cfcurriculum.html

These two project-based curriculums are designed to teach experienced web developers how to create dynamic, database-driven web applications using ColdFusion 8.

Creating rich media websites with Flash

2009-03-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just come across a website, usually for a film or a video game, and you just say WOW! because it looks great and provides lots of interaction.

Many of my students see this kind of thing and immediately want to learn how to make awesome Flash websites, but suddenly fall flat because neither their graphics skills nor their ActionScript skills are up to it.

So, I'm currently developing a course in creating Rich Media Interfaces with Adobe Flash. Sharing some tips and tricks in Flash to help people make those really interactive, exciting and cool websites that just make you go WOW!

The course will look at using Actionscript, importing and using graphics, video and sound, and also utilising XML to make things more dynamic and easy to update.

Split into one-hour lessons the course will explore a variety of different interface elements that build together to make a highly interactive website template that can be used for showcasing a variety of different content.

Sound good? Is this the kind of thing YOU want to do?

The course should be ready for delivery in June this year, so if this is something you'd like to do, then please get in touch - cmaxwell @ carnegiecollege.ac.uk

Adobe UK Education deal announced

2009-02-25T04:48:00.000-08:00

Adobe recently signed an agreement with Eduserv which give Further and Higher Education establishments the ability to buy Adobe software at the best discount level in Adobe's CLP licensing programme (CLP level 3), and with no minimum initial order.

More details at http://www.eduserv.org.uk/news/2009/adobe_agreement.aspx

Aberdeen Training

2009-02-20T08:31:00.001-08:00

Thank you to everyone who attended the recent Adobe Flash training course at Aberdeen College. I hope everyone found the course useful and entertaining. It was a great pleasure to visit Aberdeen again (I lived there about 20 years ago), and also to visit Aberdeen College where I did my first photography course.

Thanks to Pamela Cumming, Head of Computing, for arranging the event and extending a warm welcome.

The course covered:

Animating characters in Flash
Walk Cycles
Animation principles
Lip synchronisation
Building a quiz game
Creating an action game
Programming in ActionScript

If you are interested in training in Adobe Flash or other Adobe products, then please contact me via e-mail - cmaxwell@carnegiecollege.ac.uk, or call me at Carnegie College on 0844 248 0115.

Flash Training - Feedback

2009-01-23T03:01:00.001-08:00

Thank you to everyone who attended the Flash Training day at Carnegie College on Wednesday 21st January. We had delegates from Reid Kerr, South Lanarkshire, Forth Valley, Carnegie, Telford, Langside, Dundee and Cardonald colleges, as well as two delegates from high schools.

The first half of the course covered animation techniques in Flash, including character animation, walk cycles and lip synch. The afternoon session covered the creation of a game in Flash, using ActionScript for player movement, collision detection, scoring and timing.

Thanks for all the nice comments, and good luck with your teaching this forthcoming semester!

If anyone has any further training requirements, please contact me and I'll see what is possible. The next planned training session will be in June, at the end of term. The session can be tailored to meet the requirements of the delegates, so please let me know what you want.

At present we're in the position where we can offer one or half-day courses in each of the following Adobe products - Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Flash, at an introductory or intermediate level. Also if you're interested in animation or games development with Flash, then we can also run full day courses on either of these topics. We can also offer on-site training if you have a suitable training room / software setup.

Remember, our courses are tailored for education, so cover more than just the tools. We look at development process, tips for teaching, and also provide materials that you can take away and use in your own classroom.

Thanks,
Colin

Adobe UK Schools Newsletter

2008-11-28T07:20:00.001-08:00

Adobe has started a newsletter particularly aimed at schools.

Read the first newsletter online.

I'll post details on how to subscribe once they become available.
- Colin

Flash Training Day - January 2009

2008-11-27T08:35:00.001-08:00

Carnegie College is hosting an Adobe Flash training day for teachers and lecturers on Wednesday 21st January 2009. Aimed at teaching staff who already use Flash, the training will cover more advanced animation techniques and using ActionScript for interactivity. The training will be useful for those delivering on current NQ Digital Media Computing, HNC/D Interactive Media and HNC/D Visual Communication courses. The training will be facilitated by Colin Maxwell, Adobe Education Leader.

Further details available here.

Places are limited, so advance booking is required.

Cost is £75 per person.

Flex video training now available.

2008-11-19T12:38:00.001-08:00

Adobe have released a set of videos and tutorials for learning to use Flex for creating Rich Internet Applications, entitled 'Learn Flex in a Week' the video tutorials cover the basics of Actionscript 3 and also the use of MXML and XML.

The videos can be downloaded and used offline if you have Adobe Media Player installed.

Free Rich Internet Application tools

2008-10-29T03:32:00.001-07:00

Adobe has released its Flex Builder and Cold Fusion tools for FREE for education users. These tools can be used for constructing Rich internet applications (RIA).
https://freeriatools.adobe.com/flex/
https://freeriatools.adobe.com/coldfusion/

ACA / Adobe and Prodigy presentation

2008-10-23T02:24:00.001-07:00

Thanks to everyone who attended the session at Cardonald College on 22d October.

Select this to see the presentation.

Adobe / Prodigy event Cardonald College 22nd October

2008-10-07T08:47:00.001-07:00

Coming up on 22nd October 2008 is an event at Cardonald College where there will be presentations by Adobe and Prodigy (who manage the Certiport testing centres in Scotland).
Details haven't been firmed up just yet, but there will be information about qualifications, ACA exams and Adobe Creative Suite.

Likely timings are 10.30am - 2pm.

More details as they come, or e-mail me and I'll add you to my mailing list.

cmaxwell @ carnegiecollege.ac.uk (copy and paste this, but remove the spaces)

Adobe Creative Suite 4 launches

2008-09-23T04:38:00.001-07:00

The new versions of Adobe Creative Suite are now available, and the updated curridulum is also available at:

http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/teach/digitalcareers.html

Flex Builder 3 and Rich Internet Applications

2008-06-27T02:37:00.001-07:00

Just a reminder for those of you running Web Development courses and interested in Rich Internet Application development - Flex Builder 3 is FREE for education use and is available from www.flexregistration.com

Also, it looks like ColdFusion - Adobe's server technology for web applications - will also be made available to education users for FREE. See ColdFusion evangelist Ben Forta's blog.

Great stuff. We like FREE in education, and even better when its a range of products that integrate so well.

Web Design teaching materials

2008-02-26T04:40:00.001-08:00

Allan Pettie of Dalkeith High School has been undertaking the web design units with his school classes and has suggested the following materials as a good set of notes on developing a website:

Town Website Project
(You will need to register with Adobe to access this)

Published by Adobe, the materials offer tutorials in designing and developing a whole website. It includes a section on website structure, designing screen layouts and also covers some aspects of testing. The tutorials cover basic use of Dreamweaver - formatting text, using tables, inserting graphics and links, however does not cover the more advanced features such as CSS or forms.

Suggestions are always welcomed, so please feel free to post links to favourite online tutorials or resources.

-Colin

Director - Latest News

2008-01-14T08:10:00.001-08:00

The latest news from Adobe is that next release of Director will be in February 2008.

Rebranded Adobe Director, Adobe plans for it to be the preferred environment for games creation - presumably utilising the 3D features of Director that we can only dream about in Flash!

Adobe Edge Newsletter

2007-12-04T07:51:00.001-08:00

If you haven't done so already, then I recommend you sign up for Adobe's EDGE newsletter which showcases new stuff from Adobe. This month there's a video that demonstrates a new product which is currently called Thermo (new products at Adobe usually have codenames, until final release. I noticed at their offices in San Francisco that some of the meeting rooms share the names of these codenames). Anyway, Thermo looks like a cool new way to develop appplications - allowing designers an easy way to start producing interfaces and basic interactivity in applications, without the need for heavy coding skills.

Check it out at the Edge web page.

Adobe Flex Builder 2 free to education

2007-11-12T04:14:00.001-08:00

Adobe's Education Developer Center recently announced that its Flex Builder 2 IDE for developing rich internet applications would be made freely available for educational use.

More information about Flex builder can be found on the Adobe website, and here is a link to the registration page so you can register to access your free copy for educational use.

Also in development from Adobe is a set of curriculum for Flex which should help students get up to speed with Rich Internet Application (RIA) and Web 2.0 application development. I'll post more news on this as it develops...

FREE curriculum from Adobe

2007-11-09T06:18:00.001-08:00

Adobe recently announced it was making some training materials freely available for its new certification programme, Adobe Certified Associate.

3 sets of curriculum are available, covering a range of Adobe software including Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, In Design, Illustrator, etc.

The curriculum on offer is as follows:

Digital Design: Foundations of Web Design (Adobe Creative Suite 3 version)
Digital Design: Foundations of Web Design (Macromedia Studio 8 version)
Visual Design: Foundations of Design and Print Production (Adobe CS3)
Digital Video: Foundations of Video Design and Production (Adobe CS3)

The curriculum is aimed at High Schools, so is around SCQF levels 4 - 6, but is suitable as introductory materials for all levels.

The NPA Web Design Fundamentals offered by the SQA was designed to match the Digital Design curriculum, so if you use Adobe/Macromedia software to deliver this qualification, then the above materials are ideal training materials for your students.