Education Leaders Program / Judy Durkin

"We are the people our parents warned us about."
— Jimmy Buffet

Judy Durkin earned her BA in Art History at Colorado College and attended Art Center College of Design. After 23 years as an award-winning freelance graphic designer, she realized that she enjoyed training her teenage employees and decided to become a high school teacher. She is now in her ninth year of teaching art, graphic design, and yearbook at Washington High School while continuing to freelance on the side. She has earned her Career & Technical Certification, Master's in Teaching, and National Board Certification.

In addition to the obsessive quest to become a master in all things Adobe, Durkin is the Franklin Pierce School District chair for Visual Arts. She is on the Washington Arts Education Association board of directors and serves as its webmaster. In the last two years, Durkin has worked as a peer coach in her district to train and encourage teachers and administrators to use more technology in their teaching. She also works with district administration developing infographics and interface design for the district's online grades program.

Durkin is passionate about using technology to transform education. She is involved in the ongoing challenge to engage young minds and increase literacy in a school with disadvantaged youth. She weaves reading and writing into every lesson. She uses websites, interactive forms created with Adobe® Acrobat® software, and Adobe Captivate® and Adobe Flash® Catalyst® software to deliver a paperless and visually rich way to reach students. She employs Adobe software to create self-paced, divergent projects. Durkin regularly shares her freelance experiences with her students and works alongside them to enforce the message that effective visual communication requires endless exploration, experimentation, and study.