Grant Writing in Higher Education - The ProQuest Funding Database

Readers,

I am quite excited about the ProQuest Pivot funding database. I plan to use this database VERY frequently! It seems like a great resource. Does your institute have a subscription?

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Grant Writing in Higher Education - Yay! We Met Another Deadline

Readers,

And...we're back! Spring break was great! Our family had a group weekend at Lake Tyler in Tyler, TX and now I am refreshed and ready for the rest of the week!

Today, a colleague and I had a grant deadline. We were super excited to submit the application and to sign the paperwork in the internal transmittal process. Thank goodness!

The grant is actually focused on the social media processes of a state agency in Texas. We would be VERY excited to receive the grant and we should hear about our status in a few months. :) Wish us luck!


This week, I will focused on a few grant resources that I frequently use to seek grants. :)

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

WINNING ENTRY! - "Great Ideas for Teaching With Adobe Products" Contest

Congratulations to "SUBMISSION C - Mobile Game Design Using Flash and Photoshop" for the prize-winning submission to the Adobe in Higher Education contest co-sponsored by Communication & Higher Education blog and A Millennial Professor's View of Higher Education blog. We hope you enjoy CS5.5!

Thank you to everyone who submitted their use of Adobe in higher education and thanks to everyone who took the time out to vote for your favorite submission.

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Opportunity - (Reminder) TSMRI seeks fellows for its 2012-2013 fellowship program

TSMRI seeks fellows for its 2012-2013 fellowship program

The Texas Social Media Research Institute (TSMRI) announces its 2012-2013 fellowship program. An online application to become a TSMRI Fellow is available at http://www.tinyurl.com/TSMRIfellowapp. The deadline to apply is Friday, March 23 and fellows will be announced May 1.

TSMRI is a multidisciplinary collaboration based at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. The institute provides research and training focused on communication technology and social media for K-12 education, higher education, businesses, and non-profit organizations. 

The Texas Social Media Research Institute Fellowship Program aims to foster research on social media and provide researchers and practitioners resources for discovery, both applied and scholarly. Fellows will work with TSMRI to connect social media to their research agendas. Fellows will receive early access to the Journal of Social Media in Society, complimentary registration to the 2012 Social Media Conference and TSMRI workshops and a one-year membership to TSMRI. Fellowships are for one year (June 1 to May 31) and applicants may re-apply for one additional year.

We are excited about offering opportunities to scholars wishing to study issues in social media. We expect to have between 2 and 5 scholars for the inaugural year of the fellowship program and hope to have applicants from universities across the United States, various disciplines and research paradigms.

For more information about TSMRI, visit http://www.tarleton.edu/tsmri/ or contact texassocialmediaresearch@gmail.com.

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Happy Spring Break! - Monday, March 12th to Friday, March 15th

Readers,

Happy Spring Break! The Millennial Professor blog will observe Spring Break during from  Monday, March 12th to Friday, March 15th.

Enjoy your break!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Open Education Week (March 5th to 10th) - Take the Plunge, Sign the Open Education Pledge!

Readers,

Open Education Week is coming to a close, but this is definitely not the end to this amazing celebration of open education! Take the pledge! Commit to open education! 

The Support Centre for Open Education and the Open Education group are sponsoring a pledge to enable others to support open education!

Sign the pledge! - http://www8.open.ac.uk/score/make-commitment-open-education

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Open Education Week (March 5th to 10th) - Open Textbooks!

Readers,

I am becoming a huge fan of open textbooks! Here is "A Virtual Tour of the College Open Textbooks Adopter Communities" Prezi presentation! 

Virtual Tour of the Grant-Winning Adopter Communities on Prezi

When traveling, I hate dragging textbooks along in my luggage. This virtual alternative for textbooks would enable me to remain current on my classwork AND prevent back pain at the same time!

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Open Education Week (March 5th to 10th) - Flexible Learning for Open Education (Floe) Animated

Readers,

Happy Open Education Week! I was pleased to find an amazing animation focused on Open Education Week. I enjoy creating and editing these great animations for class and also for fun!

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Open Education Week (March 5th to 10th) - Open Michigan

Readers,

Happy Open Education Week! Michigan University utilizes the open education concept in a variety of ways! Check it out!

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Open Education Week (March 5th to 10th) - African Open University

Readers,

Happy Open Education Week! This is an amazing event! This week, I will highlight a few of the NEAT "events" happening during this week:

African Virtual University at the Open Education Week!

Africa Virtual University is an innovative concept for its students and the local community! Enjoy!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

LAST DAY TO VOTE - Vote for the BEST IDEA - "Great Ideas for Teaching With Adobe Products" Contest

Readers,

Greetings everyone!

Here are the entries for the "Great Ideas for Teaching With Adobe Products" Contest! Vote for the BEST IDEA via the Google Form listed at the end of this blog post.

Thanks for your support! :)

The contest ends on March 4, 2012! Please type any questions in the comment section below.

Drs. Edwards and Helvie-Mason

SUBMISSION A - Surreal Animation

Idea Category: Classroom Ideas (Face-to-Face or Hybrid)

Adobe Product: Photoshop

How the Adobe Product Was Used: Students create the animation in Photoshop and then export the video to be edited in either MovieMaker or Premiere Elements.

Idea Description: Students collaborate in pairs to create an animated dream-like surreal animated collage using Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft MovieMaker or Adobe Premiere Elements. Students will compare and contrast the concepts of dream-time or the subconscious in work created by Aboriginals and the 

Surrealist movement with an emphasis on Salvador Dali and Frida Khalo. 

View examples here: http://vimeo.com/17954450

SUBMISSION B - Smart Boards And Adobe Connect

Idea Category: Online Instruction/E-Training

Adobe Product: Adobe Connect

How the Adobe Product Was Used: We use adobe connect for education,  for IT remote help, and inter-departmental online meetings

Idea Description: Adobe Connect is a powerfull virtual classroom application which is very suitable for distance learning university programmes. But  in math involved lectures it should be improved that the whiteboard pod can  recognize the math writings turns them into regular math equations and formulas which is input via a smart board. Also the chatpod should be improved for written math conversation between students and the lecturer. For example when i write a latex code between a tag it should render the formula and shows the actual equation.  This should be improved because smart boards are not so smart to recognize the handwritten formulas.

SUBMISSION C - Mobile Game Design Using Flash and Photoshop

Idea Category: Classroom Ideas (Face-to-Face or Hybrid)

Adobe Product: Photoshop, Flash

How the Adobe Product Was Used: 

We use Photoshop to create the graphics that we use inside Flash.  We especially use it for creating seamlessly tiling textures for use in a blitting tile based game engine.  We create sprite graphics that we can use for our character and projectile animation needs.  We use the tools in Photoshop to understand how both additive and subtractive color theory works and pixel density affects the clarity  and sharpness of images and graphics used for projected display and print media.

We use Flash to understand animation, from keyframes to tweening, timing and secondary motion.  We come to grips with the advantages of vector graphics and the drawbacks in terms of performance.  We explore the use of Action Script 3 extensively for use in animation, interaction and game design.  We finish by publishing our files for use on the web, stand alone PC through AIR and for mobile devices through Android and iOS releases.

Idea Description: I currently teach a class in Game Design.  I use Photoshop and Flash almost exclusively to bring the concepts taught in the class to life.

We first take a crash course in Photoshop, learning how the program's tools and functionality work to understand color theory, image resolution and raster graphics.  We create projects that are directly applicable to our game development by learning how to make seemlessly tiling textures, using layers to seperate out parts of a character for use in animation and building graphical user interfaces and heads up displays from scratch.

Afterwards we delve into the world of Flash where we explore all the options and tools that it presents to understand how framerate can affect animation.  We discuss using keyframes to build animations and using tweens to move from keyframe to keyframe.  We explore the differences between vector and raster(bitmap) graphics, the advantages and disadvantages of each as it pertains to game development(especially for mobile devices).  We discover the display list and how we can use it for different effects. We import graphics from Photoshop and become aware how easily we can update our movie clips, character animations and textures while moving from one program to the other.

Once we have become familiar with the graphic and animation capabilities of Flash we then dive into Action Script 3.  We use this as a base to begin learning object oriented programming.  We begin by studying the fundamentals of variables and functions and continue on towards building custom classes and interfaces that allow us an amazing level of interaction and complexity between our existing graphics and user input, be it through keyboard, mouse or touchscreen.  Flash using Action Script enables us to consider new ways to bring ideas to life, where Adobe has opened every creative avenue and inroad is an opportunity for a budding game designer to express themselves in an ever expanding marketplace of potential.  

Our final project is to take the Flash projects we have worked on and publish them for use on both Android and iOS devices.  The ease with which we are able to do this through Flash has really motivated my students' desire to learn how to develop games using the Adobe products.  The time is ripe to take advantage of such a rich feature set to not just build our dreams into reality, but to carve out careers and a deeper appreciation for the world we live in.

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Higher Education Faculty/Staff and Stress - A Word from a Faculty Member in the Field

Readers,

Today, I am featuring several blog posts from one of my dearest friends in higher education, Dr. Lora Helvie-Mason. She contributes several posts a year on the topic of stress and higher education.

Service, Stress, and Pre-Tenure Period

Assistant Faculty Life and Kids

I enjoy reading her posts, because she writes about work-life balance and tenure, the story of my life for the past few years. :)

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

REMINDER - Vote for the BEST IDEA - "Great Ideas for Teaching With Adobe Products" Contest

Readers,

Greetings everyone!

Here are the entries for the "Great Ideas for Teaching With Adobe Products" Contest! Vote for the BEST IDEA via the Google Form listed at the end of this blog post.

Thanks for your support! :)

The contest ends on March 4, 2012! Please type any questions in the comment section below.

Drs. Edwards and Helvie-Mason

SUBMISSION A - Surreal Animation

Idea Category: Classroom Ideas (Face-to-Face or Hybrid)

Adobe Product: Photoshop

How the Adobe Product Was Used: Students create the animation in Photoshop and then export the video to be edited in either MovieMaker or Premiere Elements.

Idea Description: Students collaborate in pairs to create an animated dream-like surreal animated collage using Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft MovieMaker or Adobe Premiere Elements. Students will compare and contrast the concepts of dream-time or the subconscious in work created by Aboriginals and the 

Surrealist movement with an emphasis on Salvador Dali and Frida Khalo. 

View examples here: http://vimeo.com/17954450

SUBMISSION B - Smart Boards And Adobe Connect

Idea Category: Online Instruction/E-Training

Adobe Product: Adobe Connect

How the Adobe Product Was Used: We use adobe connect for education,  for IT remote help, and inter-departmental online meetings

Idea Description: Adobe Connect is a powerfull virtual classroom application which is very suitable for distance learning university programmes. But  in math involved lectures it should be improved that the whiteboard pod can  recognize the math writings turns them into regular math equations and formulas which is input via a smart board. Also the chatpod should be improved for written math conversation between students and the lecturer. For example when i write a latex code between a tag it should render the formula and shows the actual equation.  This should be improved because smart boards are not so smart to recognize the handwritten formulas.

SUBMISSION C - Mobile Game Design Using Flash and Photoshop

Idea Category: Classroom Ideas (Face-to-Face or Hybrid)

Adobe Product: Photoshop, Flash

How the Adobe Product Was Used: 

We use Photoshop to create the graphics that we use inside Flash.  We especially use it for creating seamlessly tiling textures for use in a blitting tile based game engine.  We create sprite graphics that we can use for our character and projectile animation needs.  We use the tools in Photoshop to understand how both additive and subtractive color theory works and pixel density affects the clarity  and sharpness of images and graphics used for projected display and print media.

We use Flash to understand animation, from keyframes to tweening, timing and secondary motion.  We come to grips with the advantages of vector graphics and the drawbacks in terms of performance.  We explore the use of Action Script 3 extensively for use in animation, interaction and game design.  We finish by publishing our files for use on the web, stand alone PC through AIR and for mobile devices through Android and iOS releases.

Idea Description: I currently teach a class in Game Design.  I use Photoshop and Flash almost exclusively to bring the concepts taught in the class to life.

We first take a crash course in Photoshop, learning how the program's tools and functionality work to understand color theory, image resolution and raster graphics.  We create projects that are directly applicable to our game development by learning how to make seemlessly tiling textures, using layers to seperate out parts of a character for use in animation and building graphical user interfaces and heads up displays from scratch.

Afterwards we delve into the world of Flash where we explore all the options and tools that it presents to understand how framerate can affect animation.  We discuss using keyframes to build animations and using tweens to move from keyframe to keyframe.  We explore the differences between vector and raster(bitmap) graphics, the advantages and disadvantages of each as it pertains to game development(especially for mobile devices).  We discover the display list and how we can use it for different effects. We import graphics from Photoshop and become aware how easily we can update our movie clips, character animations and textures while moving from one program to the other.

Once we have become familiar with the graphic and animation capabilities of Flash we then dive into Action Script 3.  We use this as a base to begin learning object oriented programming.  We begin by studying the fundamentals of variables and functions and continue on towards building custom classes and interfaces that allow us an amazing level of interaction and complexity between our existing graphics and user input, be it through keyboard, mouse or touchscreen.  Flash using Action Script enables us to consider new ways to bring ideas to life, where Adobe has opened every creative avenue and inroad is an opportunity for a budding game designer to express themselves in an ever expanding marketplace of potential.  

Our final project is to take the Flash projects we have worked on and publish them for use on both Android and iOS devices.  The ease with which we are able to do this through Flash has really motivated my students' desire to learn how to develop games using the Adobe products.  The time is ripe to take advantage of such a rich feature set to not just build our dreams into reality, but to carve out careers and a deeper appreciation for the world we live in.

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Higher Education Faculty/Staff and Stress - "Group Stress Reduction Techniques"

Readers,

Today's post is focused on "Group Stress Reduction Techniques" among faculty and staff  in higher education. To reduce stress, our department often does one or more of the following...

1 - Group Impromptu Meetings - When one higher education professional meets with other higher education professionals, the venting and idea generation process begins! Among the faculty in the communication studies department, our BEST ideas emerge from these meetings (i.e. - nominating another faculty member for an award, etc.).

2 - Eating Lunch and Eating Lunch OFTEN! - The instructors and faculty enjoy spending time with one another and eating! As a result, our meetings usually revolve around food and special celebrations.

3 - Collaborative Writing - My colleagues and I enjoy publishing together. This reduces the amount of stress that we experience when writing articles alone. As a former writer who published alone, it was very hard for me to work with others, but now I value the help!

Do you have any "group stress reduction techniques" to contribute to the list?

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Higher Education Faculty/Staff and Stress - Differences Among Women and Men

Readers,

Here is an interesting table focused on stress and the female faculty member. Just look at the differences between male and female faculty members and stress in higher education. Here's the interesting aspect, I do not see ANYTHING related to roles outside of work - family, church, community service, etc.

Percentage Reporting Some or Extensive Stress Related to Certain Job Duties

Duty/Issue Creating Stress	Men	Women
Teaching load	47.5	57.9
Students	49.7	65.8
Research and publishing	67.1	85.7
Review and promotion	44.8	65.3
Committee work	61.6	74.7

Do these percentages coincide with your experiences in higher education (either as a male or female)?

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/23/stress#ixzz1qlKHNj3o
Inside Higher Ed 

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Opportunity - (Reminder) TSMRI seeks fellows for its 2012-2013 fellowship program

TSMRI seeks fellows for its 2012-2013 fellowship program

The Texas Social Media Research Institute (TSMRI) announces its 2012-2013 fellowship program. An online application to become a TSMRI Fellow is available at http://www.tinyurl.com/TSMRIfellowapp. The deadline to apply is Friday, March 23 and fellows will be announced May 1.

TSMRI is a multidisciplinary collaboration based at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. The institute provides research and training focused on communication technology and social media for K-12 education, higher education, businesses, and non-profit organizations. 

The Texas Social Media Research Institute Fellowship Program aims to foster research on social media and provide researchers and practitioners resources for discovery, both applied and scholarly. Fellows will work with TSMRI to connect social media to their research agendas. Fellows will receive early access to the Journal of Social Media in Society, complimentary registration to the 2012 Social Media Conference and TSMRI workshops and a one-year membership to TSMRI. Fellowships are for one year (June 1 to May 31) and applicants may re-apply for one additional year.

We are excited about offering opportunities to scholars wishing to study issues in social media. We expect to have between 2 and 5 scholars for the inaugural year of the fellowship program and hope to have applicants from universities across the United States, various disciplines and research paradigms.

For more information about TSMRI, visit http://www.tarleton.edu/tsmri/ or contact texassocialmediaresearch@gmail.com.

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Higher Education Faculty/Staff and Stress - My Stress Reduction Strategies. :)

Readers,

This week is focused on something that everyone who works in the higher education environment usually experiences at one time or another...STRESS! I am focused on stress reduction and the different techniques that people adopt to reduce their stress.

First, I will start with several things that I do when I am stressed out from teaching classes and research.

1 - Graphic Design - I LOVE designing fliers, t-shirts, logos, brochures, etc. Recently, I started designing announcement cards (i.e. - birth announcements, etc.) for friends and family.

2 - Shopping at Thrift Stores - Surprisingly, I enjoy walking around our local Goodwill to discover ideas from other people's projects (i.e. - art projects, holiday projects, clothing projects, gardening, etc.). This is a HUGE stress reducer for me, because I have a small glimpse into another person's life for a small amount of time AND I get to purchase materials for a reduced cost (either to give to friends and family or to re-purpose inside of my own home).

3 - Gardening - I was very excited to start my garden a few weeks ago. I cleared all of my plants from last year (a few of them were still alive - swiss chard, etc.) and I started anew! Now, I have the following plants growing in my garden - red/green/orange/yellow bell peppers, tomatoes, stevia, kale, strawberries, etc.

What do YOU do to reduce your stress from the higher education environment.

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

College Professors - The "Good" , The "Bad", and the "Under Improvement" -

Readers,

Every year, the Carnegie Foundation sponsors its U.S. Professors of the Year program. 

This program honors professors from four categories:

Outstanding Baccalaureate Colleges Professor

Community Colleges Professor

Outstanding Doctoral and Research Universities' Professor

Outstanding Master's Universities and Colleges Professor

Nominate one of your colleagues! - http://www.usprofessorsoftheyear.org/Nominations.html

Here are the highlight's from last year's competition:

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

GENTLE REMINDER - Vote for the BEST IDEA - "Great Ideas for TeachingWith Adobe Products" Contest

Readers,

Greetings everyone!

Here are the entries for the "Great Ideas for Teaching With Adobe Products" Contest! Vote for the BEST IDEA via the Google Form listed at the end of this blog post.

Thanks for your support! :)


The contest ends on March 4, 2012! Please type any questions in the comment section below.


Drs. Edwards and Helvie-Mason

SUBMISSION A - Surreal Animation

Idea Category: Classroom Ideas (Face-to-Face or Hybrid)

Adobe Product: Photoshop

How the Adobe Product Was Used: Students create the animation in Photoshop and then export the video to be edited in either MovieMaker or Premiere Elements.

Idea Description: Students collaborate in pairs to create an animated dream-like surreal animated collage using Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft MovieMaker or Adobe Premiere Elements. Students will compare and contrast the concepts of dream-time or the subconscious in work created by Aboriginals and the 

Surrealist movement with an emphasis on Salvador Dali and Frida Khalo. 

View examples here: http://vimeo.com/17954450

SUBMISSION B - Smart Boards And Adobe Connect

Idea Category: Online Instruction/E-Training

Adobe Product: Adobe Connect

How the Adobe Product Was Used: We use adobe connect for education,  for IT remote help, and inter-departmental online meetings

Idea Description: Adobe Connect is a powerfull virtual classroom application which is very suitable for distance learning university programmes. But  in math involved lectures it should be improved that the whiteboard pod can  recognize the math writings turns them into regular math equations and formulas which is input via a smart board. Also the chatpod should be improved for written math conversation between students and the lecturer. For example when i write a latex code between a tag it should render the formula and shows the actual equation.  This should be improved because smart boards are not so smart to recognize the handwritten formulas.

SUBMISSION C - Mobile Game Design Using Flash and Photoshop

Idea Category: Classroom Ideas (Face-to-Face or Hybrid)

Adobe Product: Photoshop, Flash

How the Adobe Product Was Used: 

We use Photoshop to create the graphics that we use inside Flash.  We especially use it for creating seamlessly tiling textures for use in a blitting tile based game engine.  We create sprite graphics that we can use for our character and projectile animation needs.  We use the tools in Photoshop to understand how both additive and subtractive color theory works and pixel density affects the clarity  and sharpness of images and graphics used for projected display and print media.

We use Flash to understand animation, from keyframes to tweening, timing and secondary motion.  We come to grips with the advantages of vector graphics and the drawbacks in terms of performance.  We explore the use of Action Script 3 extensively for use in animation, interaction and game design.  We finish by publishing our files for use on the web, stand alone PC through AIR and for mobile devices through Android and iOS releases.

Idea Description: I currently teach a class in Game Design.  I use Photoshop and Flash almost exclusively to bring the concepts taught in the class to life.

We first take a crash course in Photoshop, learning how the program's tools and functionality work to understand color theory, image resolution and raster graphics.  We create projects that are directly applicable to our game development by learning how to make seemlessly tiling textures, using layers to seperate out parts of a character for use in animation and building graphical user interfaces and heads up displays from scratch.

Afterwards we delve into the world of Flash where we explore all the options and tools that it presents to understand how framerate can affect animation.  We discuss using keyframes to build animations and using tweens to move from keyframe to keyframe.  We explore the differences between vector and raster(bitmap) graphics, the advantages and disadvantages of each as it pertains to game development(especially for mobile devices).  We discover the display list and how we can use it for different effects. We import graphics from Photoshop and become aware how easily we can update our movie clips, character animations and textures while moving from one program to the other.

Once we have become familiar with the graphic and animation capabilities of Flash we then dive into Action Script 3.  We use this as a base to begin learning object oriented programming.  We begin by studying the fundamentals of variables and functions and continue on towards building custom classes and interfaces that allow us an amazing level of interaction and complexity between our existing graphics and user input, be it through keyboard, mouse or touchscreen.  Flash using Action Script enables us to consider new ways to bring ideas to life, where Adobe has opened every creative avenue and inroad is an opportunity for a budding game designer to express themselves in an ever expanding marketplace of potential.  

Our final project is to take the Flash projects we have worked on and publish them for use on both Android and iOS devices.  The ease with which we are able to do this through Flash has really motivated my students' desire to learn how to develop games using the Adobe products.  The time is ripe to take advantage of such a rich feature set to not just build our dreams into reality, but to carve out careers and a deeper appreciation for the world we live in.

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41