We’ve been having a discussion internally about our program for Flex training in higher education. As I posted earlier, we recently started providing Flex Builder to students and faculty for free. What else can we do to get more students around the world learning Flex? Please share your thoughts and suggestions.
Flex training in higher education: we need your feedback
February 8th, 2008 by mike downey Leave a reply »
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Also, if you’re already teaching Flex in a semester-long program, please contact me directly so I can ask you some questions about your program.
- Mike, mdowney@adobe.com
I think part of it may be that many Flash students/faculty aren’t aware fully of Flex or its importance. I am a college student and self-taught myself Flex, but I’ve recently begun getting my faculty interested in starting a Flex program. They were only casually interested until I gave them a demonstration.
Basically, a strong outreach program to students and faculty already running Flash related programs definitely helps.
First of all, it’s really great that you’ve opened Flex up to education as you have. I believe this will go a long way to making Flex something students will want to learn- it’s really difficult for a lot of them to pay for software on top of all their other expenses.
I teach a variety of classes which focus on Adobe products in both design and development- primarily using Flash and AS3. I am actually proposing an advanced AS course that would focus on developing applications using the Flex framework to one of my divisions. These things do take quite a bit of time to get going though.
I love the fact that you are focusing on educational institutions. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help out with this effort.
Joseph Labrecque
Senior Multimedia Application Developer
University of Denver
Mike, I’m interested in introducing this course in a junior college setting, however I’m having thoughts about how it would fit within the curriculum. Junior colleges sometimes have relationships with industry, but also as transfer programs to 4 year institutions. As a legitimate contender for a computer science course, I could see some courses delivered using AS3 as a basis. It has most of the qualities of Java and C#, plus it’s based on the ECMAScript standard. However, the area this falls short on is curriculum for first and second semester programming courses. Most books on Flex appeal to someone who already has a background in programming and just needs to know how to apply the language to solve problems related to RIA techniques, rather than to a student trying to wrap their head around the idea of how to write code in the first place.
It would be nice to see an effort to collaborate on curriculum that involves a true pedagogical design to first or second year programs writing software using Flex Builder as the tool. Since Flex Builder is free to students and faculty, and relatively easy to use I see it being a complimentary course to first and second semester CS programs–especially since AS3 has many of the similarities of more accepted programming languages in these areas.
Otherwise, it seems like Flex would be seen in web design courses where I don’t think it fits as well as other topics such as HTML, Photoshop, Flash, and Dreamweaver which appeal more to designers.
I’m excited and very interested in pioneering Flex in Higher Ed at my 2 year institution. Just don’t know how to sell it to the curriculum people and what program it would fit in…
I was a student at a school for applied science in Austria. We learned flash and actionscript (flex2 was not published at that time) because our profs thought that it is important.
So, I think you have to persuade the profs that flex is a technology with great opportunities and tell them the advantages of using flex. After that you maybe should support the profs in preparing the lessons, because lots of profs don’t have the knowledge about flex and actionscript.
Hi Mike,
as a students I’ve always asked to do my exercises in ActionScript and not in Java or in C++. But my professor had a problem: they couldn’t validate my syntax as they ignored ActionScript :( So they didn’t accept my request.
So I think the best way to promote Flex & ActionScript is to educate our educator :)
Also the fact that Flex & AS are proprietary held seems to be a problem for University (at least in Geneva’s).
Keep giving away version 3 for educational use when it comes out, not just version 2.
Indeed, how many teachers would want to teach with obsolete tools? And how many students would choose to go the legal way when they can pirate a newer version instead? ;)
Just my 2 cents… maybe this is obvious, but I couldn’t help wondering whether v2 is now free partly because the “new improved but not so free” v3 is about to be released.
Well, I am one of the 75% of developers that has been self-taught. What I wonder is that a company will hire a someone with a basic knowledge of Flex and train them in their own way since Flex Developers are in such high demand. It’s difficult for us regular guys to find time to learn new skills with a family and day job etc. What do you guys think?
@Patrick: Yeah, I don’t think we have any plans to stop the program when Flex 3 comes out. I’d expect us to keep offering it to educators and students for free.
Most of the previous comments hit the main points I would make, so no need to repeat. Educate educators is certainly key.
Two quick thoughts from the Interactive Media Studies program at Miami University:
1. It might help to “can” some of the class materials. For example, if you had some faculty develop a sample syllabus with assignments, it would help someone hit the ground running with it. Maybe even have a “live” syllabus that allows faculty to augment it as needed.
2. Part of the issue, for us, is the “Pre-Flex” courses. What would we need?
3. Finding faculty/adjuncts to teach it is never trivial. We’d love, for example, to deliver a course online with industry folks teaching it.
4. Maybe some “out of the box” assistance is setting up the platform on servers, since many admins at universities aren’t as familiar as they should be and could be intimidated and/or unnecessarily concerned with installing it.
Please feel free to contact me directly for any follow-up.
If there was an all inclusive video tutorial series on say Adobe labs, or lynda.com, that showed how to take a real world project from beginning to end. Not one of the lame projects no one would ever use but something useful that students and those of us familiar flash (and would consider ourselves as midlevel developers) a broad overview of a project from beginning to end. Say a photo sharing app for example, something utilizing external data in a useful everyday way. Not lets create a hangman game or some useless library app. I realize the documentation out there is enough for some people and that we should take it as a jumping off point, and usually its enough. I pick things up pretty quickly and I want to learn flex really bad but just can’t seem to grasp a projects architecture so I stick to Flash. I’m probably like a lot of people in that I just need to see an actual working example from beginning to end and that would be enough. Right now it seems that any documentation is quite abstract and relies on the fact that you’re already an OOP expert. And its almost as if the Flex tutorials were written for people that already knew flex.
I am agree with Glenn!
Hi Mike,
I think this is a great idea. I don’t come from a design or development background but am setting up optional modules for medical undergrads who have taken a medical multimedia course. The plan is that they would use some elearning authoring air apps that I’ve already put together in FB to generate media rich interactive elearning objects but would also be exposed to FlexBuilder as a tool for rapid, local elearning application development, evolution and customisation.
As these aren’t design or development students per se would your free FB program apply to them?
As an example of the continued democratisation of web content generation (as opposed to consumption)this interests me. Incidentally it brings another group into the Adobe fold!
Hope this rather long-winded contribution is helpful.
Peter H
Hey Mike,
My campus has a serious Flash deficit, mainly because the CS department is highly research-oriented (so they like C++, Java, Lisp & Scheme) and has trouble taking Flash seriously, the Arts department is staffed with Director folks who haven’t even picked up AS2 for the most part, and our new Games major seems to be in love with Python.
But I’m trying to change that. I’m giving a bunch of free Flash lectures with my friends, and next week we’re covering scripting. It’s a start.
Flex Builder is a nice thing to have for free, but it’s a hassle to put it on lab machines and then to get it to work properly. Students have a greater likelihood of installing it on their computers than using it in a lab setting, which means they will be using Flex outside of class, in an isolated environment, where they can’t spread the word. In a research institute, where business applications just aren’t produced the majority of the time, Flex has little chance of spreading from within.
Flex may, however, be introduced if students expect it in the curriculum. That would place pressure on the institute to pick it up and start using it.
Oh, one other thing Mike,
Research institutes like mine *do* like students who go off and start a company based on their academic research. That puts the college’s name in the papers, and encourages folks to enroll. If you make the case to universities that Flex provides a framework for people to create rich, powerful cross-platform applications that turn a profit, maybe that’ll help Flex spread.
Hi Mike, you can contribute and promote your flex posts on http://www.nerv.es/flashme, thanks!
Honestly, the best way to generate buzz is to make the whole package more affordable for the average user who is *NOT* a student or faculty.
I for one am a recent graduate, who graduated before this Flex program, would like to increase my skill-set with Flex, and may begin teaching in higher education in the future. If people like me could get Flex at a more affordable cost, then the drive will be there. There will be more people able and willing to teach Flex in higher education, as there will be more people that have knowledge of Flex and what it can do.
Also, Adobe needs to give Flex more exposure. The main software that people know Adobe for is the Creative Suite. If Flex was integrated into the Suite it would help increase user exposure to the framework.
>What else can we do to get more students around the world learning Flex?
The problem is getting the green light to teach it from university administration. I’d love to put together an ActionScript3 / AIR course.
How about a web-based resource, promoting the benefits of teaching Flex(/AS3/AIR)? With examples of projects suitable for students. Also a place where lecturers could share information and resources.
Mike, So, I think you have to persuade the profs that flex is a technology with great opportunities and tell them the advantages of using flex.
I teach number of modules that are based around Flash and other Adobe products and am interested in Flex. I think that there is a learning roadmap required for flex and for flash, starting from scratch. the roadmap should really identify a good place/technology/language to start learning and then how to build this up so that the students can use flex or flash and understand what they are coding, and doing int the interface from the word go. I often get studetns who have played around with flash and say that they know it, but all they have really done is copy out a few online tutorials to pretty pointless case studies. So I agree with a number of the other posts above that there should be a structured case study that sees a useful project through the full lifecycle and more importantly that structures the learning in the form of a learning roadmap.
Hi mike,
This is imai(aged 19) from India.I m doing Computer science engineering.I love adobe and flex development.I attended all flex conferences in India conducted by Abdul and Mrinal.
I thanks adobe for providing aus flex edu license.
In my state(southern India) many college students now slowly heard that there is “Flex” only few are intrested to know about that.
In India students normally participate in competetions.If you conduct any contest for indian students it will help us to aware of Adobe flex and air…
Hi Mike,
I love your posts, thanks for keeping us updated.
Regards
Kamran
I don’t think we have any plans to stop the program when Flex 3 comes out.
Thank!
I think you
Hi Mike,
I think this is a great idea.
I think that there is a learning roadmap required for flex and for flash, starting from scratch
Flex competition announced at the universities for students. Thank!
This is a very informative article on Flex
Mike,
I’m actually looking for a new university lecturing job now. (Either that or return to industry). I may consider working in the US if they give out visas to English people.
I’m still keen to put together courses on Flex, AS3, Flash, and other contemporary web development technologies. So if you hear about a university that hiring, and wants industry experience+lecturing experience (and is prepared to put up with my English accent), please let me know.
Thanks
Thank you for this article on Flex training……..I hope more universities consider it
Flex training i have take my education in higher school! Thanks