THE COURSE: 8-24-20 to 12-12-20
Sections:
Online section  #63537

This class is an introduction to the basics of Interactive Multimedia. Through practical exercises and creative projects, we will learn how to use the Adobe Flash/Animate® environment to create Rich Media Applications, that can integrate animation, graphics, sound and interactivity.
Although SWFs are not used directly for web anymore, Flash/Animate is today one of the best platforms to create Timing in Animation, export Animation as video or to other programs, prototype interactive experiences and games.
All animation can be exported to HTML5 Canvas. Adobe is slowly implementing JavaScript for coding, but for now we will still use Action Scripting 3.0 because it shows the full potential of the program and it works as an easy to comprehend foundation towards other type of scripting and coding.

Rich media means a combination of sophisticated Graphics, high quality Typography, Audio and Video files, integrated into a single application that is prepared to load and run smoothly over the web. Flash/Animate is moving away from being the ideal platform for websites, because of not being supported on the I-phone and the I-pad but it is the best integrated platform to create complex interactivity and an ideal format to test simple games and apps, even if they later need to be reprogrammed in objective-C or other programming language.

1. We will begin the course by discovering the native graphic and Animation tools in Adobe Animate. The use of vector graphics, the use of a linear timeline, frame-by-frame animation, and specific animation assistants Tweens) that are also used in all digital animation systems.

2. The free-form, dynamic and intuitive experience that the user can get from an Adobe Animate application, requires you, the author, to organize all the content so it can be accessed through a process that we call Interactive Navigation. We will dedicate a good portion of the class to understand the Idea, possibilities and technical production of an Interactive Interface and the navigation that makes it functional.

3. This will be, for many of you your first experience in the field of Interactive Applications. It will be an intense one and require a good deal of concentration, (you are going to change, in a sense, the way in which you think, from Linear to non-linear structure). This change will open your creativity to a whole new world of possibilities.

SLO 1 - Animation - Upon successfully completing this class, a student will be able to use key-framed animation over a Timeline.

SLO 2 - Symbols Media - Upon successfully completing this class, a student will be able to organize their projects through symbols (using Graphic, Movie-clip and Button symbols), integrating in them different types of media (bitmap- graphics, native animations, sound clips and digital video files).

SLO 3 - Interactive - Upon successfully completing this class, a student will be able to create an Interactive timeline, using frame-labels and Action Scripting commands that would facilitate a user-driven Timeline Navigation.

COURSE STRUCTURE

This is NOT a self-paced course. Each week you will complete a module. Each module builds on the experience acquired in the previous one.
You will be required to read, watch training videos , practice with the software and deconstruct the sample file, then complete the assignment.
Please allocate 3 to 5 hours beside the strict class time every week to work on your assignment.
Online students: the time you spend going through help pages, videos and sample files is your "strict class time". Calculate separately those 2 to 5 hours to put the assignment together.
Try to schedule 2 weekly sessions for yourself: one to understand the material, another one to work on the assignment. Don't leave problems for Sunday afternoon or you will not have time to rectify or get feedback on your process.

Every semester we find students that figure out they have problems working with the software's structure when they have more than 4 assignments due. The key to pass this class is working at a constant pace!
You need to become familiar with a good number of techniques and you need time to assimilate them.
You cannot spend more than 3 days in a row without practicing and hope to learn the software in 15 weeks.

Try to do your best on your weekly assignments.
Test the mechanics before in a test project (where you reconstruct the sample file). Try at that stage to come up with a creative idea that will fulfill the assignment. Work the assignment on a new document. Save stages as different documents if you have to.

The assignments are not tests to check that you have practiced, they are creative opportunities to apply what you have learned. There should be a creative IDEA behind them.
If you take time to think of something that you would like to work on , and then put it together using the concepts introduced in the module, you will be working towards a tangible goal and advancing territory towards a Final Project. This will make the process more exciting and you will get more out of your work. It might seem harder to apply an idea to the project, but it is the way to go if you want to produce good work to use in your portfolio.

We will complete a Final Interactive Project that will be an equivalent of a Final Exam and will integrate most of the Techniques and routines learned through the course.

Since there is only going to be a week and a half fully dedicated to the completion of this Interactive piece or Rich Media application, it is a good idea to begin testing out creative ideas early on.
It is an acceptable practice to Use or Recycle past weekly assignments, especially if you complete and rework them towards visual Integration in the Final project.

You will provide me with a description of your Final project by mid-semester, describing the creative idea, wireframe structure or description of the parts, and methods of Integration.
(How the parts integrate conceptually, how we perceive the Integration _visual codes_ and how you will organize your Navigation).
This will give you time to get feed-back about your project, find or produce the media files, and work your assignments in the direction of your Project.
You will get to see previous examples in our Help-site for the class, and we will discuss websites with interesting Flash work in the Animation or Interactive territories.
Link to the rubric for the Final Project:

http://soma.sbcc.edu/users/ajarabo/F_online/final_project.html

The class will take place in Canvas. We will be working with ActionScripting 3.0 and Adobe Animate CC
(Whatever version you have on the Creative Cloud).

To help you in your learning, I will give you links to training videos in LinkedIN learning.
All SBCC students have free access to the complete Linkedin training Library.
Since the new license for LinkedIN runs through an association of Community Colleges, your status as a student has to be verified. I will provide one of those long links on every module, The link will force you first to sign up in Pipeline (to verify) and then take you to the video inside LinkedIN.
Here you have a long LINK to a volume on Adobe Animate, you can comeback to this one if follwing a normal link does not let you see the video I linked for you. Long link HERE

I will hold Zoom sessions once a week, to demonstrate techniques for the weekly assignment.The Zoom demonstration will take place on Tuesday afternoons, around 1:30PM.If you cannot assist at that time, please send me an email. I need a list of students that will watch the recorded video later (I will give you a link to the video in Youtube). I will send you some questions to fill out about the video every week.
On each weekly content page, at the bottom, you will see the recorded session form Fall 2020. I will place the new one below. My plan is to do a shorter lecture this semester, and keep last semester's longer lecture there for consultation.

If you work better with a book than with training videos, you could get any recent version of "Adobe Animate, classrom in a book".
This will only help you for the first 8 weeks, meanwhile we are learning animation tools with this software. From week 8 on, I will have my own training videos, where I will deconstruct the sample file for you. We will NOT follow the coding lessons in the book.

Adobe Animate, Classroom in a book. By Russel Chun.
Adobe Press, 2020. ISBN-13: 978-0136449331.

Adobe Animate, Classroom in a book. By Russel Chun.
Adobe Press, 2019. ISBN-9780135298886.
You can get it now for $15.85 @ebooksnow.org as a PDF

Books for older versions of the software work fine also to learn the drawing and animating tools. example:
Adobe Animate, Classroom in a book.
Adobe Press, 20017. ISBN-13: 978-0134665238 ISBN-10: 0134665236

In the content page in Canvas I will be giving you links to specific videos @ linkedin.com every week. You can also search for other videos or features in that library, using the search field above.

I have also put together a help site, with reference to assignments, terminology and software use. I will give you links to the different pages through the course.
http://soma.sbcc.edu/users/ajarabo

GRADING

I have portrayed as a graphic so you can see the numeral value of our weekly activities.
This also gives you an overview on the structure of the course.
The maximum personal score is what is listed here.

Weekly assignments can add up to 50 points. If you turn an assignment late (after the Sunday deadline), five points will be discounted from your total score.
The assignments will be accepted late for one more week. After that timeframe they will be no longer taken into account for grade (please contact me if that happens, depending on the situation I could give you an extension).
First assignments to arrive are also the first ones to be reviewed. If you submit late it will be your job to remind me to go back and find your late assignment.

In the assignment description you will see the rubric/grading table that specifies what exactly will be graded.
Please check my comments in your assignments. I always comment in the assignment's rubric.This feedback is important.

Each forum (or discussion group) can give you up to 10 points.
The first modules ask specific questions, later on it will be mostly used to present common problems and possible solutions.
Answering to somebody else's post show good indications of participation, it is a great way to interact with other people, test yourself on what you already know and get a better grade!

From the eighth module on we will work producing interactive short projects. This involves working with "Action scripting".

If you are not familiar with any programming language (and I am expecting most of you to be in that case), you are going to work very hard in modules 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
Please do not give up. The technical aspect has a learning curve and it takes around a week of daily work to understand the code for how to program a button. Afterwards, you will just re-use that code from assignment to assignment. It takes quite an effort at the very beginning, since you will be using several technical-constructions at once.

We will work with timeline navigation to produce fully dynamic and interactive projects.
Please be very careful on not missing assignments at this crucial moment.
What you learn, and even what you make for those assignments will be used to create your final interactive project.
Please keep every week's assignment safe in the class folder in your computer. For reference and to be able to reuse your own material.

Finally, try to not concentrate on numbers. The final goal of the class is to help you learn, and it has been structured around that goal.
Behind your scores, through your work and participation, I can see your effort and I will try to reflect it on your final score.

Good luck to you all and may you have a constructive experience.

Alejandra