Do You Need to Know EVERYTHING?

[Brian Stoppee]

Do you really need to know EVERYTHING about an Adobe app?

Media technology is ever-changing. There was a time when creative professionals were pigeon-holed as: Photographer, Designer, Illustrator, Writer, Director, Producer, Editor, etc.

Today, one job description may require one primary skillset, but also a series of subset skills. By way of example, many people are in charge of web content for their employer. When they started their jobs, a few years ago, they may have been quite good with working in Adobe Photoshop.

With proper training that employee became an Adobe Photoshop ACA (Adobe Certified Associate: http://www.adobe.com/training/certification.html). As that person grew into the job, some skills with Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw were natural progressions. Soon Adobe Lightroom became helpful. Next, their employer wanted them to touch-up some documents in Adobe Acrobat, to add PDFs to the website. Now that person’s supervisor needs a few new documents created as PDFs so, our web content creator needs to learn some Adobe InDesign.

In the last sentence, “learn some Adobe InDesign” is the important part. That employee just needs some basics. The work that person is going to do uses pre-designed templates. So, a trained designer he/she is not.

We have enjoyed teaching Adobe 100 Level courses to these people, in a public college setting. Most of those students are in the 29-59 age range and have very good skills with macOS or Windows 10. They also know their way around the Adobe CC UI (user interface). So, they’re ready to learn the basics of an app, quite quickly.

Do they want to take a deep dive into the features of those Adobe apps? Not at this point.

They’re not looking at the scenery from 50,000 feet up. But, that student isn’t timid, either. They’re ready to land and get out and inhale the local air. But, they’re not interested in buying some InDesign real estate, pouring a foundation, and building a permanent home, either.

But, isn’t that what the full Adobe Creative Cloud subscription is all about? That collection of desktop apps serve the multimedia professional quite well.

In short: a permanent InDesign residence? No.

A pigeon-holed job? Today, those things are for the birds. Multimedia professionals are capable of taking skills, reaching out, and constantly growing their own personal capabilities. They gain confidence in building their own workflows.

[Brian Stoppee]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Janet+L+Stoppee  wrote

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Brian+Stoppee   wrote

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Brian+Stoppee    wrote

TriciaLawrence     wrote

This could possibly be a good thread to include the new tutorial videos Adobe has just produced to help beginners get going with our software:

Game on, Tricia.

Janet posted the first one, here:

Photoshop Starter Tools   

But we didn't stop there. Here"s

Clueless About Getting Started with Premiere Pro? 

Was an Adobe CC Subscription Under Your Christmas Tree? Now What?  

Need a Whole InDesign Getting Started Series?   

And here's one I just did on Lightroom Classic:

New to Lightroom Classic? Do This First!

And here Janet & I completed the series with this:

Just Getting Started with After Effects? Here's Your Main Entry Door.

[Brian Stoppee]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Brian+Stoppee  wrote

And here Janet & I completed the series with this:

Just Getting Started with After Effects? Here's Your Main Entry Door. 

So this series has:

• After Effects and

• Premiere Pro

How about:

• Audition?

[pziecina]

I think this thread is now going beyond what 'The Lounge' discussions were meant for.

Whilst I don't think you are profiting from your posts directly,  there is now a large questionable amount of self promotion in what is being posted, (a thought also being echoed in a few other sections of the forums).

If this continues I will consider locking this discussion, and reporting this behavour. If you disagree with what I have written, please contact Tricia, but remember had this been a discussion created by a none ACP, it would have already been locked, and possibly deleted.

[Brian Stoppee]

pziecina  wrote

Whilst I don't think you are profiting from your posts directly,  there is now a large questionable amount of self promotion in what is being posted,…

I"m clueless as to what someone is doing which is self promotion oriented. Could you please be more specific about what someone is promoting, please?

[pziecina]

In your original post you do state that you instruct on how to use Adobe products. Helping users by posting links to tutorials that would help them in solving questions they start discussions about, is considered acceptable, even offering your paid for services too users in answer to problems they are experiancing in using a product, is acceptable.

However those self-promotions should be the exception, and only offered once it is clear that such a course would be in the users best interests.

Your last few posts in this thread, and the associated posts in the individual product forums, do promote your self, and by association the professional services you supply to Adobe product users.

If those posts had been from a none ACP member of the forums, then only one or two would be acceptable. The number of posts now being created by yourself, (and your partner) cannot be handled any differently than those of none ACP status.

There was a couple of discussion in the ACP forum to allow ACP's to create tutorials and helpfull links to tutorials in specific sections of each forum, a few months ago. Those proposals were aimed at the Dreamweaver forum, and later incorporated the Muse forum, however you objected to such forum specific features being allowed, so why do you now think that what you are doing is acceptable and any different to what you objected to.

[Brian Stoppee]

pziecina  wrote

Your last few posts in this thread, and the associated posts in the individual product forums, do promote your self, and by association the professional services you supply to Adobe product users.

We are currently unavailable to provide any services to any Adobe users.

So, again, the only thing we're offering to do is help on the Adobe forums.

[pziecina]

If you wish to provide links and possibly reviews to the Adobe tutorials, then contact the Adobe staff member for the individual products, and ask him/her to help you in doing so.

There are a small number of ways currently available for creating such documents, and the 'documents' section of each forum is one of them. Forum discussions are not the way to do what you are doing.

For one thing, within a few days such discussions are 'lost' as newer discussions replace them. They become outdated as new versions are released, and Adobe removes old tutorials eventually, so the links become 404 errors.

[TriciaLawrence]

As this thread is ACP-based and no longer appropriate for the Lounge discussions, I and locking it and reaching out to the key individuals concerned with answers in a separate email message.  Thanks!

[Ussnorway]

the link shows a sample exam with multiple (out dated) choice questions

[Brian Stoppee]

Ussnorway  wrote

the link shows a sample exam with multiple (out dated) choice questions

We got something weird with the link where the objectives appeared but then the page was replaced with study materials but we were able to back into the objectives.

We didn't get the sample questions, but we're located them in the past when Janet was beta testing the exams.

[Ussnorway]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Brian+Stoppee  wrote

Ussnorway   wrote

the link shows a sample exam with multiple (out dated) choice questions

We got something weird with the link where the objectives appeared but then the page was replaced with study materials but we were able to back into the objectives.

We didn't get the sample questions, but we're located them in the past when Janet was beta testing the exams.

yes Adobe sees that page as out of date and auto-redirrects people to the basic dashboard in order to be helpful... you can override it by going back https://edex.adobe.com/Dashboard/

[Brian Stoppee]

Ussnorway  wrote

yes Adobe sees that page as out of date and auto-redirrects people to the basic dashboard in order to be helpful... 

Adobe Education needs some internal redirection which we hope is already in progress and will appear soon in response to the 2018 versions of CC apps.

Things like the certification should be a powerful toolbox for users.

That needs some major rethinking.

But the Getting Started series tells us they are rethinking things.

[Ussnorway]

the indesign tutorials I tested this year are a joke, they only covered Mac (not Windows) and half the info in them is wrong... after two pages worth of error reports on just the first two videos in the series  I was politely asked to stop pointing out mistakes because it was upsetting people.

[MACnTUTOR]

That is sad. I do not work on the InDesign exams much less the tutorials. I am not clear what relationship those tutorials hold to the exams. I will let those who work on them (present in these forums) speak up if they wish.

Anyway, your feedback is important. You might consider beta testing the InDesign exams. You will get the certification if you pass the beta exams.

[Brian Stoppee]

Ussnorway  wrote

the indesign tutorials I tested this year are a joke, they only covered Mac (not Windows) and half the info in them is wrong...

Maybe I don't want to know the answer to this, but what InDesign tutorials were you testing?

(Go ahead. Blame me. I asked. It seems relative to the Getting Started discussion, so I thought we should explore this.)

[MACnTUTOR]

Finally as to the beginning tutorials, I am thrilled that they even exist. After 10 years of teaching Adobe software college classes at the Art Institute and adult vocational training Adobe software classes (by my count I have had the honor to train one-on-one over 1000 users of all levels in 3 month courses), I am happy to see Adobe even make this effort. If there are problems with the tutorials, then they need to be improved. But again, after years of seeing very little from Adobe (that is not meant as a criticism), I am thrilled to see they are a free option for beginners and think this step is long overdue.

[Brian Stoppee]

MACnTUTOR  wrote

But again, after years of seeing very little from Adobe (that is not meant as a criticism), I am thrilled to see they are a free option for beginners and think this step is long overdue.

Janet & I are very pleased with this, as well. It's difficult to provide something that entry level on a commercial basis.

That's where the media tech companies need to come to the table with their own entry level solutions. The software publishers need to see this as their version of the "Quick Start" guide which comes with a camera.

[Nancy OShea]

Many of those questions and topics are totally irrelevant to modern DW.   I especially like this sample question.

5. Edge Web Fonts fail to load and the corresponding

script tag appears to be missing in the document.

Which action resolves this problem?

A. Choose Edit > Web Fonts > Clean Up Web Fonts

B. Choose Commands > Clean Up Web Fonts Script Tag (Current

Page)

C. Choose Modify > Manage Fonts and click the Clean Up Web

Fonts button

D. Choose Clean Up Web Fonts in the CSS section of the Property

Inspector

Answer: B

That's pretty funny because the Commands menu is gone. Short of being able to add the missing <script> and </script> tags manually in Code View,  the user is toast. 

[Ussnorway]

yes i got a laugh from that one too

[Brian Stoppee]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Nancy+OShea  wrote

Many of those questions and topics are totally irrelevant to modern DW.   I especially like this sample question.

5. Edge Web Fonts fail to load and the corresponding

script tag appears to be missing in the document.

Which action resolves this problem?

WOW! That is grim.

We're thinking the exam is CC 2015 oriented but the whole Edge project went to the Adobe graveyard before then, right?

[Brian Stoppee]

MACnTUTOR  wrote

HI Brian. Yes to both the ACA and ACE exams. The objectives of both exams make this clear:

I think you helped us stay on topic Thomas.

Though the objectives may be old, Adobe is still telling us that the ACA objective include coding but that's not the overriding purpose of the Dw ACA in the workplace.

Our experience is that many people are employed around the Baltimore-Washington area to work in Dw but they never code anything. They're employer doesn't want them touch code.

So, yes, Adobe, please give those kind of people a nice set of Getting Started tours of the many things An, Dw, Mu, Xd are all about.

[MACnTUTOR]

FWIW, in my understanding, the ACA exams certify basic level ability to perform certain jobs (rather than being just a test on DreamWeaver). On the other hand, the ACE exams test for thorough knowledge of specific software (such as DreamWeaver). Knowing this distinction has helped me understand why ACA and ACE both exist.

I am trying to walk the NDA tight rope here by answering your questions only with what Adobe had publicly stated. 🙂

[Brian Stoppee]

MACnTUTOR  wrote

I am trying to walk the NDA tight rope here by answering your questions only with what Adobe had publicly stated. 🙂

Yes. We're trying to be cautious while at the same time helping the general readers understand some aspects of things from multiple viewpoints (like good ACPs should)!

[Ussnorway]

no thanks I don't really use Indesign... the point was people new to the software

most the mistakes are basic ones... tutorial says click here and this happens [no it didn't] or click this menu to open that panel [windows don't have that menu option]

@Brian I don't know the current nda statis of this so better not to go into it... I did post some of my examples in the ACP forum but they are prob berried by now

[MACnTUTOR]

Well that is exactly the sort of feedback we look for from beta testers for the exams. Whatever Adobe software you use, I hope you consider beta testing for the exams as you seem to have good judgment and a forthright manner. As to the tutorials, I would think they would also welcome the feedback if quality control is a priority.