Graduate Adobe Photoshop Course
The graduate students for the Instructional Design program lacked the knowledge and ability to work with Photoshop. This course was created to teach them the key features they could use within Adobe Photoshop to increase their productivity.
Teach students the key skills they need in Adobe Photoshop to create visuals within their career.
Graduate students within the instructional design track who lacked graphic design skills and Adobe Photoshop skills. Graphic design skills are closely tied to using Adobe Photoshop because of the settings needed to produce the visuals within their career. Students were open to learning but were apprehensive about learning an Adobe product as some had heard it was a complex program. They also lacked time; therefore, the course must be engaging yet allow students to work at their own pace.
The course is hosted on Blackboard Ultra LMS to give the students easy access to the course. I created a course navigation checklist, a syllabus, and assignment rubrics. Some of the modules are listed below.
Module 1 is “Before You Begin.” This module helps students figure out their computer system. People can become frustrated with trying to work in Photoshop (PS), and they don’t realize the problem is their computer cannot run Photoshop.
Key objectives are the following:
- Investigate your computer
- Appraise a new system
- Discuss your findings
Module 2, “Before We Dive In,” is the basic information students need to know before editing. This is more of a pretraining area for students to understand how to select images, what color space to work in, and a host of other essential points to decide before starting a project. Most people do not consider these points, but what one decides at this stage can make or break any edit and can limit one’s ability to work with any image in PS.
Key objectives are the following:
- Appraise images
- Classify three color spaces
- Examine document settings
Module 3 is “Getting Started.” Here, we will discover the PS interface, learn how to place images, lock images, and begin basic types of image editing. The project for this module is silly, but it will help students have fun and lessen their apprehension about Adobe Photoshop!
Key objectives are the following:
- Create a workspace
- Investigate PS interface
- Appraise editing tools
Module 4 is “Level One.” There are many tools in PS, and they all have their purpose. In this module, students learn a host of tools, some of which are making custom shapes, simple adjustment layers, and masks.
Key objectives are the following:
- Manipulate text
- implement masks
- Integrate adjustment layers
Zoom was used to conduct the live sessions.
Microsoft products were used to create wordage and send communications.
Graphics were created in Adobe Photoshop.
The syllabus and rubrics were created in Adobe InDesign.
All PDFs were exported through Adobe InDesign and exported by Adobe Acrobat and made 508 compliant.
Miro was used for course layout and brainstorming.
Verbal check-ins were utilized to determine student satisfaction, and assignments and check-off points were used within each module to determine if the student had attained the skill before progressing to the next module.
This course was aligned with the Quality Matters Rubric.
* The images are cut off unless one views them from a desktop.*
The first example was the banner for the course.
The second set of images were reoccurring images to visually take students to videos or readings instead of relying on a hyperlink. This was to reduce cognitive load and provide for a visually pleasing classroom.
The third set of images was used within the beginning module to set students up for success and give them easy access to the needed materials.
The fourth set of images are some pages from the syllabus.
The fifth set of images are some pages from the course checklist. This was created for students to print off so they wouldn’t get lost in what was within each section of Blackboard since Blackboard has no reliable way to provide student check-off points.
The sixth set of images are some of the rubrics.
The video is a representation of how the images were used to break up the text and progress the student in their learning.