Adobe

Overview

Adobe Creative Cloud through Hwb offers a platform of 22 products that give learners a comprehensive, mobile, digital makerspace to bring their stories and creativity to life, using the same tools that industry leaders use today. Schools can purchase licenses via their local authority and can allocate licenses to their users through the Hwb User Management Portal. 

Remember that all learners and teachers have free access to Adobe Spark through Hwb. 

Explore endless creative possibilities

Using creative apps in the classroom and beyond with your learners encourages them to actively engage with projects and is a core requirement for the GCSE and A Level Digital Technology qualifications. Adobe Creative Cloud includes industry favourites like Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, InDesign and more.

In school and at home

With the named user licenses through Hwb both teachers and learners can also use Creative Cloud on their devices at home unleashing their creativity and allowing users to work on projects from anywhere.

Through the EdTech Service, we’ve worked in close partnership with Adobe to make Creative Cloud available, using your Hwb login details, at a significantly reduced cost for teachers and learners in maintained schools in Wales.

For further information on which devices and operating systems you can use creative cloud, please refer to Adobe’s system requirements and installation guides.

Top picks

Adobe Photoshop: Learners and teachers can use Photoshop in just about every creative project, from photo editing and compositing to digital painting, animation and graphic design.

Adobe Animate: Animate just about anything. Design interactive animations for games, TV shows and the web. Bring cartoons and banner ads to life. Create animated doodles and avatars, and add action to e-learning content and infographics. With Animate, you can quickly publish to multiple platforms in just about any format and reach viewers on any screen. Adobe Animate is a key application for Unit 2 of the Digital Technologies qualification. 

Adobe Acrobat Pro: You can use Acrobat Pro to create, edit, comment, share and sign PDF documents. Save precious time on all your admin.

Adobe InDesign: Your learners can use Adobe InDesign to bring any topic to life by using this page design software to create amazing posters, eBooks and digital magazines.

Adobe XD: Learners and teachers can use Adobe XD to design, build, share and test prototypes for websites, mobile apps, games, and more.

Adobe Premiere Rush: Premiere Rush makes it easy for learners and teachers to create and share online videos and make lessons more interactive and fun.

Remember that all learners and teachers have free access to Adobe Spark through Hwb.

Creative Cloud Apps

Minimum Requirements

Before purchasing licences for Adobe Creative Cloud, please be aware that the various Adobe applications have different minimum device requirements (e.g. memory, storage, graphics, etc.) and we would encourage all schools to speak with their local authority EdTech partner team to discuss their requirements before purchasing licenses. Please refer to the minimum requirements for Creative Cloud as outlined on the Adobe support site. https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/creative-cloud/system-requirements.html

Adobe Creative Cloud is not a core Hwb service and is not automatically available to all users. In response to demand from schools across Wales for Adobe Creative Cloud, the Welsh Government, working in conjunction with local authorities, has facilitated a process which enables schools and local authorities to purchase Adobe Creative Cloud. This offering provided via the EdTech Service is at a significantly discounted price. However, beyond facilitating and managing this technical solution, the Hwb programme has no direct involvement in the purchasing or management of Adobe licenses and therefore all queries regarding Adobe Creative Cloud should be discussed with your local authority EdTech partner team.

How do I buy licences?

All schools will be provided with a ‘taster’ license.

All maintained schools can place orders for additional licenses with their local authority who will purchase licenses on their behalf. To access the significantly reduced costs via Hwb, all orders have to be placed by the nominated local authority representative with the Caerphilly EdTech Service.

Licenses will be available in the school's User Management portal within approximately two weeks of the local authority order being processed, following the closure of each order window.  Digital Champions can then apply the licenses to staff and learner accounts and there is flexibility to reallocate should staff or learners leave.

License terms will run in parallel with the academic year. Please note orders must be placed annually by 31 July  or 31 October to ensure Digital Champions can apply licenses to staff and learner accounts ready for the next academic or calendar year. For more information on this process please contact your local authority. 

Any orders not processed in advance of the academic year or in the October window will need to wait until the following academic year. 

How do I apply licences?

Licences will be available in the school's User Management portal within approximately two weeks of the local authority order being processed, following the closure of each order window.

Licence allocation for learners and MIS staff 

Digital Champions and Hwb administrators will be able to allocate these licences to any learner or MIS staff accounts in the User Management Portal (i.e. those listed under ‘View Staff’ and ‘View Learners’).

Individual users

1. Log in to Hwb and navigate to the User Management Portal.
2. Click Administration > Manage Adobe CC Licences.
3. You will see an overview of the allocation of licences for your school followed by a search box and a list of learners and MIS staff. Locate the relevant user using the Search term field as appropriate e.g. type surname and click search
4. Click Allocate Licence next to the relevant user.

Group of users

1. Log in to Hwb and navigate to the User Management Portal.
2. Click Administration > Manage Adobe CC Licences.
3. You will see an overview of the allocation of licences for your school followed by a search box and a list of learners and MIS staff. Click on the tick box to the left of the relevant staff members.
4. Click Allocate Licence at the top of the list.

It may take up to 1 hour for the licence to be applied to that user.

How to deploy Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Admin Console

Adobe Creative Cloud packages can be created in the Adobe Admin Console - https://adminconsole.adobe.com/

Local Authority EdTech members can request access to the Adobe Admin Console via the Hwb Service desk. hwb@gov.wales . The deployment administrator role will be given to the EdTech members on request.

Schools technicians will need to contact their local authority EdTech contact to arrange access to the admin console, who in turn can provide them with the deployment administrator role.

Deployment Administrator

A deployment administrator can create any number of packages to suit different deployment needs. These packages can be downloaded and deployed via any mechanism that supports .exe or .msi installations, or .pkg installers on MacOS, before they expire.

https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/admin-guide.html/enterprise/using/applications.ug.html

Adobe Update Server

The Adobe Update Server Setup Tool (AUSST) is also available to provide a caching solution for the installation files and updates.  The packages can be configured to use the local server by specifying it in Preferences in the Admin Console (these preferences are per user).

https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/admin-guide.html/enterprise/using/update-server-setup-tool.ug.html

How do I sign into Creative Cloud?

1. Go to https://creativecloud.adobe.com/
2. Click sign in
3. Enter your Hwb account username@hwbcymru.net
4. Choose the ‘Company or School Account’ option
5. From this page you can view ‘All apps’ to download

On a personal device you can now choose the apps you wish to install.

Schools should consult with their local authority about managing the deployment of apps across the school network.

How do I revoke licences?

Digital Champions and Hwb administrators can manually remove a licence:

1. Log in to Hwb and navigate to the User Management Portal.
2. Click Administration > Manage Adobe CC Licences.
3. You will see an overview of the allocation of licences for your school followed by a search box and a list of learners and MIS staff. Locate the relevant user using the Search term field as appropriate e.g. type surname and click search
4. Click Revoke Licence next to the relevant user.

It may take up to 1 hour for the licence to become available to be re-allocated to another user.

Once learners or staff are marked as a ‘leaver’ in the MIS and the Provisioning Client runs, the account will be automatically deactivated and licences removed. The licences will then be available to be reallocated to another staff member in the User Management Portal.

Support

Adobe Community Cymru Team

Join the Adobe Community Cymru team for inspiration and support from like-minded colleagues across Wales.

Peer support

There is a fantastic community of Hwb users across Wales who are doing amazing activities with their learners through the Hwb toolset.  We always see lots of help and advice being offered on social media but wanted to provide our community with a one-stop shop for this information.  As such we have created a Peer Support area, a central place on Hwb that everyone can see and that allows everyone an opportunity to share their knowledge and experience.

Please visit this page for Adobe peer support.

Further support

Adobe Creative Cloud is not a core Hwb service and is not automatically available to all users. In response to demand from schools across Wales for Adobe Creative Cloud, the Welsh Government, working in conjunction with local authorities, has facilitated a process which enables schools and local authorities to purchase Adobe Creative Cloud.

This offering provided via the EdTech Service is at a significantly discounted price. However, beyond facilitating and managing this technical solution, the Hwb programme has no direct involvement in the purchasing or management of Adobe licenses and therefore all queries regarding Adobe Creative Cloud should be discussed with your local authority EdTech partner team.

For more information on using Adobe Spark please visit our Support Centre or join the Adobe Community Cymru team.