Academic Licenses Blog

Try Adobe Software for Free

Not sure if you need Photoshop Extended or if Photoshop Elements would be fine? Photoshop Elements is definitely easier on the budget so if you could use that instead wouldn't you? Or maybe you are thinking about migrating to Dreamweaver from Frontpage but not sure about the learning curve and if you could be up to speed by time school starts back in the fall.

Adobe offers free 30-day trials of almost all of their software. This is a huge advantage that I find comes as a surprise to educators all the time!

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/

They also offer free training -- in the form of online videos -- that can get you moving really quickly.

Web Communication using Adobe Dreamweaver

I'm talking about the new certification for Dreamweaver users: the Adobe Certified Associate.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the new program for becoming an Adobe Certified Associate is really a testing product. The curriculum is provided for free directly from the Adobe website. The testing has been approved by Adobe -- which is how they can use the title Adobe Certified Associate.

The Dreamweaver exam is called Web Communication using Adobe Dreamweaver. The objectives are as follows:

• Setting project requirements

• Planning site design and page layout

• Understanding the Adobe Dreamweaver interface

• Adding content

• Organizing and modifying content

• Evaluation and maintaining a site

Without question, Dreamweaver is the industry standard for web site design, development, and maintenance. So obviously being certified as a Adobe Certified Associate: Dreamweaver would be a competitive edge in the workforce.

Professional Development: Adobe Training and Certification

Dreamweaver. Flash. Photoshop. What if your school (or district or college) had a training center that offered training and testing on these Adobe applications? You provide the instructor - but the curriculum materials are provided for free from Adobe. It is the testing part that you pay for: $2,495 per year. 30-user lab (max) but you can provide testing for an unlimited number of students for one year. Professional development for educators and students; as well as any adult learning classes you might offer.  Professional development with more than just accountability: a certificate with a title that the educator can add to their professional resume.

Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) -- Adobe offers three areas in which to gain entry-level skills:

• Web Communication using Adobe Dreamweaver

• Rich Media Communication using Adobe Flash

• Visual Communication using Adobe Photoshop

The stimulus plan includes $650 million marked for education technology. It is my understanding that this funding will reach the schools through the EETT program which designates that 25% of EETT grant money is to be used for professional development.

I'm going to break down each certification area over the next few weeks and go into more detail.

Digital School Collection - Great for K-8

I guess you can call this a product plug if you like. That sounds a little defensive doesn't it? - sorry. I'm a little sensitive about that sort of thing.

Anyways! I'm talking about the Digital School Collection by Adobe because it is a really great solution and it is pretty darn inexpensive! This is a Win only, K-12 only solution: and we especially love it for K-8. It includes:

Photoshop Elements 7.0

Premiere Elements 7.0

Acrobat Pro 9.0

Soundbooth CS4

Contribute CS4

The installation media includes a Teacher Resource DVD.

Adobe CS4 Ships This Month

The release of CS4 is major - in fact Adobe says it is the biggest release in the history of Adobe!

I'm gonna give you the links to AdobeTV for the suites -- skip the "Announcement" (59 minutes) if you really want to dive into the deep end and find out what is new with all the products.

CS4 Design Premium

CS4 Web Premium

CS4 Production Premium

CS4 Master Collection - is everything in the other suites combined.

I have a matrix of "what's included" in the suites at my website -

I'll have more feedback about the products one they hit the street.

Free Classroom Resources for Software

A really cool emerging trend with software publishers is all the free training and classroom support they are now offering to teachers. I'm just gonna mention a few of the resources currently available -- i will revisit this topic from time to time as I hear of new stuff.

Final Draft "the industry standard: professional screenwriting software" (that's what the box says) offers a free K-12 Teacher Workbook that you can download from their site.

FileMaker offers training materials, podcasts, webinars, a resource guide . . . a library of info on using Filemaker Pro in the classroom.

Adobe's offering is heavily focused on curriculum and lesson plans. This is an extensive resource that can be researched by product or by solution.

Sony Software - Vegas Pro, Vegas Movie Studio, Acid Pro, etc. - they have free training videos.

Serif - this is a line of products that work together like a suite. Huge in the UK they are just now making their big splash in the US. I saw a demo at a recent tradeshow: very impressive. Beautiful, elegant, easy to use. All kinds of free demos and tutorials. Worth checking out.

Enjoy!

Product Review: LanSchool 7.1

As you probably know, LanSchool is classroom lab management software. It allows the teacher to monitor and manipulate every computer in the room from his/her computer. There are other products that do this -- such as NetOp.

What you may not know is that LanSchool was built with both the teacher and the K-12 student in mind. For the teacher, LanSchool is super easy to use (who wants to spend a lot of time learning new software?) and crazy powerful. Blank all screens, show the teacher screen, show a student screen, monitor all screens at once, etc. They have free online step by step training available 24/7 for teachers who want to brush up on all the functions. Oh, and LanSchool is definitely built with the student in mind . . . the Eddie Haskell student that is! The smart, tricky, trouble maker that wants to play poker on line instead of work. The teacher can shut them down and have them back on task in an instant. And though they TRY ALL THE TIME I have never heard of a student hacking into LanSchool. Ever.

FYI - I do sell LanSchool and have for years. However, this is not a paid endorsement. I don't do those.

More Web 2.0 -- Acrobat Pro 9.0 Extended

I just saw a demo of the beta version of Acrobat Pro 9.0 Extended. And, as with any beta, it choked a few times . . . but hey! That's what beta is, you know? I'm confident it will be perfect when it starts shipping later this month. Anyway, the thing is, it was really awesome. Here are just a few tidbits:

• Collaborate Live with Screen Share function -- the dialog works like any chat but you both see the doc on the screen and can manipulate it!
• Form Fill on steroids. It is crazy easy to create a form with fill in the blanks with Acrobat 9.0 and you don't have to go to a 2 hour training session to do it! Prepare to be frightened . . . when people fill out the forms and send them back to you there is a function that captures and compiles the data for you! Scary, huh?
• Turn anything into a .pdf. Now you can have movies, sound, interactive buttons, even 3D models (with the Extended version) in your doc! Works with everything! Flash, Dreamweaver, Captivate, etc.

The demo was at 8 am this morning and i had a little bit of a headache but it was obvious that 9.0 is going to change how we work. Oh yeah, I am SO going to get it.

Reselling Used Software

I just ran across this as an issue (again!) and thought I might shed some light on it for anyone out there who is confused, has issues, or whatever.

When you purchase software you do not purchase the software. You purchase a "license to use" the software. Remember the End User License Agreement that you didnt read but did in fact agree to when you loaded the software in the first place? This is what it explained. Use it for a moment or use it forever -- this is what you bought. The right to the activity of using the software. Here is where folks seem to get tripped up. If you don't want to use it anymore why can't you sell it to someone else? You still have the CD in the handy little case. Why not sell it like a bike on eBay or like a sweater to your friend. Because you do not own the software -- you own a license to use it that is not transferable. The fact that you still have the CD that the software was delivered on is of no consequence. This problem will soon be a non issue as more and more publishers find ways to control their delivery. And happily we won't have to discuss it anymore and will talk about much more interesting things.

Web 2.0 in the Classroom

I am trying to review a new book for teachers called Weaving the Web 2.0 Tools into the Classroom by Patsy Lanclos. I say "trying" as the information is so incredible that i keep stopping to check everything out! I made it to page 17 before i really started freaking out.

So, i get to page 17 which begins the Google Productivity Tools chapter. I already have a Google Account of course. (Google Analytics is a fantastic tool for web business folks.) but i had never really looked at all the other apps.  I log into Google and go check it out. I have to look around a little to find the document apps but once there they have links to youtube videos that explain everything REALLY fast. The documents, spreadsheet, presentation tools are crazy cool with all their collaborative features that scream for use in the classroom. Basically the thing is that the document stays stationary -- just one document with saved changes attached. The collaborators go to IT. Not the other way around where you have lots of documents with new revisions being emailed as attachments -- with readers/teachers/collaborators trying to figure out which is the current version. Wow. yeah. And collaborators are named and color coded so you can see who said/added what.

Honestly it was kinda scary and made my head hurt a little. It reminded me of the first time we got online (at home, spare bedroom, 1994 i think?) we could see it was really cool but weren't really sure what to do with it, you know? That is where i am right now. The possibilities keep popping in my head but they are mostly a little cloudy. I do realize that without a doubt this is huge. And i'm just seeing the tip of the iceberg.