I have taught a variety of software applications including:
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premiere
Adobe Fireworks
Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Director
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Flash
Adobe After Effects
Newtek Lightwave
Web Video
My First Full Time Teaching Gig.
American Institute For learning - Aug 1993 – June 1995
A.I.L. is a non-profit whose goal is to help high school drop outs get their G.E.D. and provide some level of job training and placement. A bright fellow named Dewey Winburne helped A.I.L. secure a grant with the aim of bridging what was just then being called 'the digital divide'. Helping low income 'at risk' youth get trained in skills to work in the exploding field of multimedia and CD-Rom production.
It was a great job, and I was in a perfect position to learn about all things in digital media. In these days before the web arrived, all forms of traditional media production were beginning to move to the desktop computer. Our 40 megahertz computers were starting to take the place of the printing press, the film edit bench and a sound editing console. Everything was going through a 'paradigm shift' and the CD-Rom was going to change the world.
It was so new, that the University of Texas and Austin Community College did not have media labs. When they decided it was time to create one, they reached out to Dewey and myself to help them with recommendations on equipment and class content.
The teaching was a challenge. The students did not have a computer at home, and they did not have role models in their community doing this kind of work. They sat in class, they learned the skills, but job placement was difficult at best. Some of the students could do the work, but they didn't have the skills to get and keep the job. It was a big leap. The program was ahead of it's time.
While I was there the web had arrived and another paradigm shift was on it's way.
By the time I left I was burned out and looking for other opportunities.
My College Years.
Austin Community College - Sept 2000 – May 2003
I don't have a college degree. Yet, there I was working as adjunct faculty teaching credit classes to college students.
A teacher was leaving and they had a spot to fill. I knew the teacher, and had subbed for her classes a few times when she was out of town. This position had very specific requirements. It was a survey class, essentially the same class I taught at A.I.L., and the instructor needed to know Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, and Macromedia Director. I was the man. I think they put me in (probably) thinking they would replace me, but the class went smoothly and my student surveys came back very positive. They added an advanced programming class, and I taught there for 3 years during the dot.com bust.
Eventually, they dropped the classes from the line up shifting their interactive focus to Macromedia Flash and the web, and I went back to commercial interactive development as the web space was rebounding.
Gimme Five Days To Expand Your Horizon.
Multimedia ENTERPRISE, INC. -Jan 2004 – October 2008
I taught week-long seminar style classes at this Adobe and Macromedia certified training facility. The classes in multimedia production served industry professionals and military clientele.
It was fun work, the pay was good, and the students were very motivated.
As the economy started to slide, flying a team of people out for training was no longer cost effective. The classes, which filled regularly in the beginning, tapered off towards the end.
Teaching Adobe Sweet.
CONSULTING
SOLUTIONS.NET, Austin, TX
Dec 2010 – Dec 2012
I went back to teaching long form classes (4 months long). Teaching the whole Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, Flash, Dreamweaver, inDesign, and Acrobat), with an emphasis on multimedia and the web. All the classes are taught from the Adobe 'Classroom in a book' series. Students can jump in at anytime with the beginning of a new application. The State of Texas sets funds aside to help retrain people on unemployment, and CS.net is one of the authorized trainers.