Education Leaders Program / Peter French
Peter French
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
School affiliations
"Digital technology is all about expressing yourself, communicating, and creating. It's about giving students a fabulous, powerful voice."
Peter French is an artist, designer, and instructor who, as a digital media teacher at the high school level since the mid-1990s, has helped many students begin their careers in the multimedia, advertising, and design industries. He teaches by introducing challenging, real-world problems into the classroom, using experiences culled from his decades of work in advertising and communications.
French's interest in digital media as expressive tools began in 2001, when he became a Clarica Scholar at Acadia University's "Sandbox" multimedia lab. That experience, married with his belief in the power of play as a dynamic learning experience, led him to explore new ways of teaching digital media to a broad range of students. French is particularly sensitive to the special needs of students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a disorder he deals with himself.
French works with the Leading Learning conference, where his rich media classes focus on Adobe® Photoshop®, Flash®, and Fireworks® software, plus a variety of other visual and audio software.
