Notes from Adobe Higher Education Leadership Meeting (AEL) Tuesday, 7:00pm - using Adobe Connect and VOIP.
First...I feel fine blogging about all this - as nothing seems to fall under NDA yet (like future product releases).
I'm participating in the meeting from home, and on my satellite Web connection the sound and slides are coming in great.
Very impressed with how well the Adobe folks use the Connect tool to run the meeting. The presentation is information packed, well laid out.....a great example of the power of Connect to provide information and build community.
Participants from all over the world.....folks who Adobe has identified as doing innovative education things and using Adobe tools. 40 people from higher education - including faculty, deans, directors, IT, academic services, media services and researchers. Countries represented include Canada, England, Scotland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.
Focus areas include: design, video, RIA/Interactive, elearning, process $ productivity. Learned that Apple Distinguished Educator has 1,500 people. Two year commitment.
AEL Program Objectives:
1. Recognize educators.
2. Opportunities for professional development.
3. Community for educators.
4. Best practices and expertise.
5. Conduit back to Adobe
AEL Benefits:
* Access to software for own use and promotion
* Higher level tech support
* AEL Summer Institute July 20-24, 2009 in California. Adobe pays for hotel and meals...participants need to pay for travel.
* Networking opportunities with Adobe team
* Our own Acrobat Connect account
* Participation in software beta program
They have a "closed" Facebook AEL Group and an Adobe blog http://blogs.adobe.com/educationleaders/
Thoughts: I have 3 very specific goals for the next two years with AEL:
1. To encourage Adobe to focus on the higher education market, particularly in areas of rapid authoring. Adobe has a real opportunity to build on their AIR platform to bring out a "Jing killer" - a free simple, cross-platform voice-over presentation system that all learners can use. The up-sell would be more feature rich products like Captivate.
2. To better understand the ROI for Connect in the context of Blackboard and learning - so we can get a handle on the benefits of this tool and the value of bringing synchronous collaboration tools into our CMS toolkit.
3. To better understand issues around rich media and education - particularly flash and video - both for Web based and mobile learning.
I go into this process somewhat skeptical, as I have not seen Adobe make a coherent case for their platforms or tools in higher education - or bring out compelling platforms and tools.
From my perspective, smaller companies like Techsmith are eating Adobe's lunch. In particular, Adobe's failure to enter the lecture capture space, their inability to get flash on the iPhone, and their lack of a simple cross-platform authoring tool are all significant negatives.
On the plus side, I am impressed that Adobe has put out a building block for Connect and Blackboard - and as a long-term and weekly user of Connect (for online teaching) I like this tool.
Finally, I'll be looking to see how open and authentic the conversations are with Adobe management, product planners, and developers.
I'm hoping that Adobe finds a way to innovate in the higher ed. space - as I think that innovation and competition will drive down costs and diffuse services.
Please let me know any issues or questions that you would like me to bring to this community.
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