24 Years Already

There is an old adage that time flies...well it sure does!

24 years ago, in the month of February 1992,  I created the first 30 hour Adobe Illustrator course at Fanshawe Night School. I was only given a couple of weeks heads up that it was a go. An advantage of youth is to say yes and figure it out as you go along. 

I created the curriculum week by week. I had a lot of help from Adobe with their "Classroom in a Box" packages. When a school bought many licences for a product, there were teacher videos and books to aid in the teaching. There were no such things as textbooks on the subject back then (or any other graphic software, for that matter) so I created the handouts myself.  This is where I worked on understanding how others learned and at what pace. This started my journey of being a curriculum developer.

2 years later, in 1994 I created the night time, Adobe Photoshop course, also 30 hours in length. It was very customary for my to have students come to me at the end of the first night and say they learned more in the first 3 hours than they had in months or longer. At this time I started using the Visual Quick Start Guides from Peachpit Press as textbooks.

That same year I created Electronic Graphic Design, a 54 hour course that went the gamut from design theory, typography, colour theory, then through Illustrator, Photoshop and PageMaker (before InDesign was created). I then taught students how to take their designs and send them to a printer, the web and presentation software. 

From 1992 to 2002, I taught not only at Fanshawe Continuing Ed but at Western FIMS, Western Continuing Studies, corporately in London and throughout Southwestern Ontario. My last 2 years I taught at the design school at Fanshawe showing Urban Planning students how to take their CAD files and bring them into graphic software programs and create portfolios for print, web and presentation.

As a graduate of BealArt and Fanshawe Design, I have 5 years post secondary art and design training. I still am up to date on my software and love learning about new technology. 

I am very grateful for the opportunities that have come my way,  and even though 24 years is a long time, I am looking forward to many more years learning new things and sharing my experiences. The teacher in this body just isn't ready to give up.

I am looking forward to new experiences. 

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