Newsletter #001 - School Rankings, Industry News and Something Epic
Welcome to Educator by The Rookies. The mission of this email magazine is to provide valuable information about what we are doing, share important education focused news, and connect schools and educators together.
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What's New at The Rookies
We felt it best to bring everyone up to speed with some quick notes about stuff happening at The Rookies you may have missed.
Global School Rankings
Hope you didn't actually miss this one, but our Global School Rankings for 2020 were announced recently. This year we not only pushed the analytics a bit further, but introduced a Top 50 rankings. Congratulations to everyone who was named in any of our lists!

Upgraded Premium Pages
Our school directory is really starting to hum. A lot of effort has been put into SEO and optimisations which means more new visitors are finding us organically and being sent over to your websites. We have just released the first round of updates for pages which now include a student gallery and student profile cards. You can see an example here, and here.
School Search
Another recent upgrade has been an overhaul to our school search. Better search means better engagement. The feedback has been really positive and our analytics are proving it was worth the pain. Take it for a spin with the link below.

Something EPIC happened
We got funded as part of Epic MegaGrants.
Lawyers have to "pass the bar", so why shouldn't we have a similar benchmark? With the support of this grant, The Rookies is working on an ambitious task to create an open source archive that will standardise skills for digital artists on a global stage. The archive will outline the essential creative and technical skills required by all artists, before applying for industry jobs.

If you are interested in being involved and making sure your opinion in considered, we would love to hear from you! Contact by replying to this email or reach out to us via live chat on our main website.
Insider's Guide
We believe that hearing from students is the best way to truly understand what a school is like. We speak to Olga Rudi, a Technical Artist at PlayStation, about the ins and outs of studying at Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Speak to our team to get your school featured in Insider's Guide.
Student Challenges
Weekly Drills: Each week we’ll post a new drill prompt with a specific topic or theme - maybe it’s science, furniture, toys or something completely random. The drills are targeted at those with a passion for modeling, texturing, illustration, or pretty much anything in between. Check out this week's drill here.
Animation Contest: We're excited to announce our first animation challenge. This is a theme that should resonate with most people during these crazy days of COVID-19. We're expecting some dramatic and original animations.

Increase Student Engagement with Remote Device Access
Sponsored by Teradici
Teradici is a company that can help you build a secure learning and training environment online. Read this guide to discover how to leverage virtualisation technology to provide high-performance computing power with a solid user experience to students anywhere they are, with ANY device.
Download this guide to learn how virtualisation can easily help you meet security and cost efficiency challenges in a variety of training and administrative scenarios.
Animating from Reference
Zeina Masri is a judge at The Rookies and is a very impressive animator worth checking out. She recently shared the following video where she shows you a fast and effective approach to animating from reference.
Resource of the Week
Students have a lot going on and sometimes all it takes is to learn about a simple resource that can help them with their learning. This week we recommend you make sure your students know about...

Advice worth Sharing
We know you get it, but sometimes it takes someone else to say the same thing to really make a student listen. Download this image and share in class or on your social media channels to help build some engagement and open up a discussion.

Industry News Worth Reading
So much news, so little time. Here are some top trending stories this week that you shouldn't miss.






Student Showcase
Make sure your students get their work uploaded to their Rookies profile. We have plenty of recruiters trawling around these days, and we love sharing their work through our social channels. Here are some of my recent faves from MOPA, Animum Creativity Advanced School and Escape Studios:



How did we do?
All great things take time to grow, but the good news is we have at least started. With your help I believe we can build a great network for us to share education news and related content from The Rookies.
Is there something you'd love to see in this newsletter? Hit us up with your anonymous feedback here.
Share with an Educator
Do you know someone else in education that would be interested in this newsletter? Share this link with them and let's get everyone connected and informed.