10th Grade — Unit 8: Getting Comfortable in Photoshop: Activating Your Adobe / Photoshop Account

🗓️ Before Class: Teacher Prep

Gather/set out: Computer with Adobe Creative Cloud installed, School Adobe account login, Their Photoshop toolbar poster from the previous lesson.
If today includes physical/hands-on work: make sure the classroom cameras are charged, working, and have a cleared SD card ready for photo uploads.
Pull up today's slide deck (see 🖥️ Slide Deck below) so it's ready to project.

🖥️ Slide Deck (project or share with students)

Short, on-the-board pacing slides for today's Do Now, agenda, vocabulary, and exit ticket -- the full detail lives in the handout above, not here.

Open / download this slide PDF

🧑‍🏫 Substitute Teacher Guide

A scripted, step-by-step runsheet for today's class -- hand this to anyone covering the room who doesn't know the daily routine.

📋 Open Substitute Guide

🎯 Essential Question

How do we set up and access Photoshop through our school Adobe account, for the first time?

📈 Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson (1 Day), students will be able to:

Log in to the school Adobe account.
Install or launch Photoshop and open a new document with the correct settings.
Locate the tools from their paper toolbar poster in the real, live interface.

📐 Standards Alignment

CDOS (Career Development & Occupational Studies)

CDOS 2 — Integrated Learning -- students will demonstrate how academic knowledge and skills are applied in the workplace and other settings.
CDOS 3a — Universal Foundation Skills -- basic literacy, communication, and problem-solving skills required for a career.

ACP (Adobe Certified Professional) Photoshop Exam Objectives

ACP 2.1 — Create a document with the appropriate settings for web, print, and video.
ACP 2.2 — Navigate, organize, and customize the application workspace.

🎓 Study this for the ACP exam: Domain 2: Project Setup and Interface

📚 Key Vocabulary

Adobe Creative Cloud: The subscription service that gives access to Photoshop and other Adobe apps.
Document Settings: The width, height, resolution, and color mode chosen when creating a new file (these differ for print vs. web).

🧰 Materials & Tools

Computer with Adobe Creative Cloud installed
School Adobe account login
Their Photoshop toolbar poster from the previous lesson

🧠 Do Now (Warm-Up)

Now that you've seen the tools on paper, which one are you most excited to actually click on today?

📤 How You Submit This — For Credit

How you submit today's work depends on what kind of work it was. Physical/paper work (most of this semester so far): photograph it with a classroom camera, upload the photo from its SD card onto a computer, and save it into your portfolio -- that upload is your submission, and the physical piece itself is yours to keep, the same as in Grade 9 (your notebook is the one thing with a home base in the room, and even that's your call to bring home when you want it). Digital work (once you're producing files in Photoshop, second semester on): no camera needed -- instead, EXPORT the file. Export your finished project as a JPG, as a PNG, AND save a copy as a PSD (all three), then upload all three into your portfolio. Either way: the portfolio upload, with a description, is what actually counts as turning the assignment in for credit.

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week, add your best finished or in-progress piece to your portfolio (the Google Drive folder you started in Grade 9, becoming your Google Sites portfolio in Lesson 10) with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, what tool/skill it used, and one thing you learned. Keep it current -- don't save it all for the portfolio-website lesson.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Activating Your Adobe / Photoshop Account.” This project asked: “How do we set up and access Photoshop through our school Adobe account, for the first time?” I used Adobe Creative Cloud by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

📋 Main Workshop / Lesson Sequence

Do Now + excitement check (5 min).
Guided login: as a class, log in to the school Adobe account together, troubleshooting as needed (10 min).
Guided document setup: open a new document, comparing print settings (inches, 300 DPI, CMYK) vs. web settings (pixels, 72 DPI, RGB) (10 min).
Scavenger hunt: using their poster, students find and click on 8 real tools in the live interface and note where each one actually lives (15 min).
Share & wrap-up (5 min): pair up and quiz each other on where 3 tools live in the real interface.

✅ Assessment & Exit Ticket

Quick check: every student has successfully logged in and opened a new document by the end of class.

Exit Ticket: What is one difference between a document set up for print and one set up for the web?

📊 Pull up the anonymous Class Check-In for students to fill out before they go.

🧩 Differentiation & Accommodations

English Language Learners: provide translated or bilingual glossaries, visuals, and sentence frames; pair with a peer for meaningful participation. Students with IEPs: provide extended time, step-by-step checklists, and one-on-one or small-group support as specified in each student's plan. Attention-related needs: break the task into smaller steps, use visual timers, and minimize distractions. Students who finish early: extend the task by adding a second design variation, mentoring a classmate, or writing a short reflection connecting today's skill to a career pathway.