- Prepare their students with the most in-demand, digital agility skills across all industries and careers.
- Enable their faculty to provide deeply engaging, transformative learning experiences across the curriculum.
- Equip staff and administration to serve your campus community more powerfully through digital workflows.
- Differentiate their institutional brand through a comprehensive, marketable commitment to innovation and digital transformation.
Adobe Creative Cloud is a Platform for Developing and Sharing Ideas
Ten years ago, media production software like Photoshop, Acrobat, and InDesign was used primarily by specialists in communication and creativity. Since then, the Adobe Creative Suite of applications has dramatically evolved alongside and within the digital transformation revolution. Today, Adobe Creative Cloud is a digital ecosystem, a platform, for everyone to create and share ideas. Within higher education, this means that every student, every faculty member, every class, every major, and every discipline can now use the breadth of solutions within Adobe Creative Cloud to solve problems and share knowledge, both traditional and emerging.
In other words, the dozens of applications and services within Creative Cloud are equally relevant across the curriculum. Consider, for example, the five most fundamental student learning outcomes shared by all courses, disciplines, and academic programs -- the famous four Cs of education:
- to communicate effectively
- to think critically
- to work collaboratively
- to solve problems creatively
- to prepare for meaningful career path
Cultivating these outcomes to prepare students for the world of today and the workplace of tomorrow hinges increasingly on digital, information, and networked technologies. Such preparation aims to move students away from being passive consumers of other people's content toward becoming active creators of their own ideas. This is why creativity tools such as Photoshop, InDesign, Spark, Premiere Rush, Acrobat, and Illustrator are equally relevant in every course and discipline.
Weber State's Journey as an Adobe Creative Campus
Goal: By 2025 every graduate of Weber State University will be digitally fluent
Weber State University became an Adobe Creative Campus in February of 2021. We are now part of a select group of colleges and universities that are driving the future of digital literacy within the global higher education community. This distinction recognizes top institutions that are dedicated to transforming education through creative digital empowerment. As an Adobe Creative Campus, WSU faculty, staff, and students have full access to Adobe Creative Cloud, a set of applications and services that gives users access to a collection of software for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, and much more.
This means faculty can more easily advance creative and persuasive digital communication skills throughout their curricula to give students an edge in the competitive modern workplace. Our school will collaborate with other Adobe Creative Campuses, sharing ideas and innovations to expand digital literacy and help ensure student success.
Our students can now access Adobe Creative Cloud tools, so they can easily learn to create a myriad of multimedia projects that will give them a competitive edge when they start looking for jobs. As they develop digital skills, they’ll also gain essential soft skills like creativity, critical-thinking, creative problem-solving and collaboration.
New faculty engage in the Dive into the Digital District
Resources to Support Your Growth and Development
Digital Fluency Faculty in Residence Offers Support
To directly inspire and support faculty to want to be more effective in utilizing technology in their teaching. WSU created the Digital Fluency Faculty in Residence position. Under the direction of The Teaching and Learning Forum, and in partnership with the Provost’s Office, Dr. Speicher’s focus is to support the growing interest in technology-enhanced pedagogies, help faculty achieve specific learning outcomes with cutting-edge technologies, and inspire faculty to reimagine their teaching and learning strategies. Dr. Speicher works hand-in-hand with the Teaching and Learning Forum, WSU Online, Creative Academic Technology Solutions (CATS), and Information Technology (IT) to achieve these goals.
Visit the Digital District
In preparation for your classes, faculty and staff are encouraged to take advantage of all the Digital District has to offer from direct resources to personnel support. For example, you can:
- Record and produce podcasts - learn how in the Podcast Studio
- Create high-quality online content and instructional videos - learn how in the DIY Studio
- Foster teamwork and collaboration - learn how with Active Learning Classrooms
- Stimulate innovation and learning across disciplines - learn how in the Innovation Studio
- Watch multimedia presentations and presentations - learn how in the Collaboration Spaces
Academic Essentials Workshop Series
Join in a faculty workshop series for anybody looking to make better use of Adobe creative tools in their work, and to help teach our students new digital skills. These are 1-hour sessions, geared toward all disciplines and backgrounds - not just art, design, or photography. Our partners at Adobe describe this as a hands-on series covering different ways students and faculty share knowledge-from quickly creating impactful presentations to data visualization, podcasts, and more. Attending instructors will have the opportunity to follow along and earn accredited badges, including an Adobe Analytics for Teaching and Learning certification. Speed and ease-of-use will be key themes, featuring the new Adobe Express-for faculty and students looking for a friendlier learning curve.
Finally, these workshops are designed by educators for educators, so it'll be an exciting opportunity to see how other members of the Higher Education community are weaving creativity into their curricula and impacting student outcomes.
Credits:
Created with images by Christian Horz - "podcasting concept, directly above view of headphones and recording microphone on orange background" • MarekPhotoDesign.com - "Practice is how your learn" • gustavofrazao - "What Are Your Goals? sign on desert road"