Teaching CS6 - Getting Started
Posted on Jul 23, 2012 by Adobe Education Latest activity: Jan 31, 2013
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A new school year is starting soon for our members in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Many educators are gearing up to teach the new Creative Suite 6 for the first time.
Adobe has created a wealth of free resources to teach your students CS6. They are all available here: http://www.adobe.com/go/cs6onaee.
What other resources do you know of that will help educators get started teaching Creative Suite 6?
Bill Guy
Posted on Jul 31, 2012 9:19 PM - Permalink
I have never been a fan of Adobe Classroom in a book because it seems to have been written by a tech writter and not a photographer. An excellent replacement book is
Adobe Photoshop CS6 Digital Classroom by Jeniffer Smith
Less expensive than CIAB and it also comes with a disk of images. While I also use many resources I know that school districts and principals want every classroom to use text books. This fulfills that requirement and teaches a much higher level of skill.
brian tinker
Posted on Jul 31, 2012 9:08 PM - Permalink
After growing frustrated with the lag time between new releases of CS and the availability of quality textbooks, we've switched to using the Lynda.com video training web resource for all of our technology learning courses. For one monthly fee ($25-$35), students have unlimited access to the Lynda.com materials. One handy feature is the certificates that verify that students have actually viewed a specific training course. Some faculty require that students submit these certificates to earn certain grade points.
Student response has been largely positive, once they engage with the resource and compare the cost of Lynda.com with the cost of a textbook(s) for each class. Many students use Lynda to train on software beyond the scope of our curriculum. Some students supplement the Lynda.com resources with books from suggested reading lists that we provide.
Lynda.com is the core resource for our "learner-directed" classroom experiences, where the students learn the software at their own pace, and in their own style, rather than the instructor attempting to drag an entire classroom of students along at the same pace. We all know how impossible that is becoming due to the complexities of today's Creative Suite. Three years into this approach, we're enjoying higher completion rates, and students who are better prepared to meet the technology proficiency expectations of their design courses.
For the handful of students who don't "connect" effectively with the learner-directed approach, we offer individual tutoring outside of class. However, since the learner-directed classroom is a very open forum, with students able to work with each other, as well as have access to the instructor, who serves more as a mentor and coach, most students don't require the tutoring services.
If great care is taken at the outset to explain the benefits of the learner-directed approach to students, little resistance is encountered. If you don't make the effort to (repeatedly) explain the rationale behind having the students "learn to learn", you WILL encounter angry students who feel that the courses are not meeting their needs or expectations. We use a 45-minute long presentation that covers the development of computer graphics, and the interconnected nature of Creative Suite products. One of the most effective points in the presentation is the fact that CS6 represents the 14th upgrade for some of its components, and that this path will continue, as might the possibility that new players might overthrow Adobe's dominance -- making the point about the importance of students being prepared to learn new software post-graduation.
Russell Sadberry
Posted on Aug 4, 2012 4:51 PM - Permalink
Are you working with high school students? Who is paying the fee? The students?
brian tinker
Posted on Aug 4, 2012 5:08 PM - Permalink
I teach at a college, so the students pay the fee. We offer dual-enrollment courses at some local high schools. Students pay the Lynda.com fee there, as well.
Elizabeth Elston
Posted on Aug 21, 2012 12:12 AM - Permalink
It's really interesting that you have utilised Lynda.com....we are looking to institute it for our staff, but should definetly look into it for our students who utilise CS6.
Melissa Piccone
Posted on Jan 31, 2013 4:41 AM - Permalink
If you are using Lynda.com, and the students have to complete the classes online in their own, then what does the instructor do? Admittedly, my teaching is completely different, my classes are only 2-3 days long and I'm just teaching the tools, but it seems that the instructor would just be a proxy.
I can understand that students would be angry and feel cheated. Why bother taking a class when you can do it online on your own? I am not trying to knock it, I just don't get it. And, as a parent thinking of college costs, if this were to happen while I was paying 10's of $1000s of $$$ to send my kid to school - you would have one furious parent on your hands.
So what else are you teaching them that is beneficial that they aren't getting from Lynda.com?
To reply to the original topic - I do use classroom in a book - because I have to as an ACI, but I suppliment with my own experience and customize my classes for my students as needed. I have tons of lessons from a library of books on hand plus my own personal photos and projects that I teach from. Just because the software is updated doesn't mean all the old stuff is out the window. I teach techniques that have been around for years that haven't changed.
brian tinker
Posted on Jan 31, 2013 5:46 AM - Permalink
Most of my students take their courses in face-to-face classes. Only about 20% of the credit hours in courses for which we use Lynda.com are taught online. Lynda.com just provides the "textbook". The instructor lectures; leads discussions; mentors; assigns and grades projects; conducts critiques; and creates, administers, and grades tests, just like they would in a course that uses a traditional textbook.
Nicole Dalesio
Posted on Jul 24, 2012 12:32 AM - Permalink
How about each other? We can utilize each other, and ask questions of those who are the experts (or not) to help figure out the answers to what we want to know!