Established as one of Melbourne first public schools, Williamstown High School was the venue for a range of Adobe in Education events this week.

I had the pleasure of working with the Year 12 Media students, focusing on enhancing their video production skills with Premiere Pro. This video captures much of what took place …

I also had the opportunity to work with the Year 11 & 12 VCD (Visual Communication Design) students to develop their Photoshop skills.

VCD is a Year 11 & 12 VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) subject that examines the way visual language can be used to convey ideas, information and messages in the fields of communication, environmental and industrial design.

After school, I conducted a professional learning event a number of Williamstown High teachers as well as some visiting educators.

We focused on Photoshop & Adobe Spark and had teachers from a range of subject areas involved such as humanities, mathematics, science, art, design, media and a primary teacher.

Special thank you to Freya Alexander who helped organise these events for her school.

2019 is going to be an exciting year of digital creativity engagements with teachers and students both face to face and online. Here are some of the regions we are planning to do events …

February

• Melbourne
• Rural Victoria
• Sydney

March

• Jakarta (Indonesia)
• Kuala Lumper (Malaysia)
• Rural NSW
• Rural Victoria
• Sydney
• Brisbane
• Melbourne

April

• Sydney
• Rural NSW

May

• Melbourne
• Perth
• Hobart
• Sydney
• Canberra

June

• Gold Coast, QLD
• Brisbane
• Rural Victoria
• Rural NSW
• Melbourne
• Adelaide
• Sydney

July

• Newcastle, NSW
• San Francisco (USA)

August

• Sydney
• Brisbane
• Melbourne

September

• Sydney
• Melbourne

October

• Sydney
• Brisbane
• Melbourne

November

• LA (USA)
• Brisbane
• Melbourne

December

• Melbourne
• Sydney

And these are the events we know about at this stage.

To get involved, click out the Adobe in Education coming events Spark Page and register.

Also, join in on any of the amazing free online courses we are running throughout the year via the Adobe Education Exchange.`

We recently welcomed the 80,000 APAC member of the Adobe Education Exchange and the 25,000 from Australia. Globally, there are now over 600,000 teachers who have joined this great free education resources.

Get involved …

Fifteen minutes is all that the Year 8 students at Melbourne Girls College had to produce a short video about their passions with the help of Adobe Spark Video.

This was the first time the students had been exposed to the Adobe Spark tools and it was very pleasing to see easy they found the software. With less time needed to learn the tool, it allowed them more time to be creative.

Criteria for the video included the following:

• Must work with a group of two or three
• Must include the passions of each member of the group
• No more than 7sec per slide
• Must include text, still images, video and voice overs
• Be creative
• Be entertaining

The girls chose a wide variety of passions for their very creative video projects.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Special thank you to Wendy Keen and Catherine Walkear for inviting Adobe to be part of the Year 8 Melbourne Girls College end of year program.

Adobe was pleased to again support Swinburne University’s 2018 Department of Film and Animation Students’ Showcase & Industry Awards hosted by Aussie Oscar winner Adam Elliot.

It was my pleasure to give the award for Creative Excellence in Animation to Giuliette Lugara and Lara Nguyen who both received 12 months of free access to the Adobe Creative Cloud software (retail value of about $900).

I was delighted to watch the wide range of student’s short films that were on show during this event. The quality of the film making and animation was outstanding, a true tribute to the quality of teaching and mentorship at Swinburne’s Department of Film and Animation.

Special thanks and congratulations to Adobe Education Leader Dr Max Schleser and his team for putting together this event and helping to create these amazing film makers of the future.

It was delightful to work with a number of students and teachers from Tintern Grammar on Tuesday December 4 and share with them the value of digital creativity with Adobe tools.

Tintern Grammar is unique because it runs a parallel program with boys and girls in seperate parts of the school for most subjects until Year 10 when they mix. As stated on their website …

The provision of both single-gender, and mixed classes on a co-educational campus- a best of both worlds approach- creates the optimum learning environment for students.

Most of the day was spent with the Year 6 students, introducing them to the Adobe Spark apps.

Their challenge was to produce a poster with Spark Post and feature the poster in a Spark Video focussing on their passions – what they love doing in their spare time.

In the afternoon, Brian Chau (Adobe Solution Consultant) and I worked with the Tintern Art  and IT teachers to help advance their skills with the more professional Adobe applications in the Creative Cloud.

The NSW Institute of Industrial Arts Technology Education (IIATE) had a strong involvement with Adobe at their annual conference this year.

On Thursday November 29 Adobe hosted a set of all day workshops for over 50 members of IIATE at the Sydney office. Adobe Education Leader Jason Carthew and I ran a series of workshops focussed on video production, composting & animation with Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Character Animator and the new Premiere Rush.

Later that evening the IIATE hosted a dinner cruise on the beautiful Sydney Harbour.

On Friday November 30, I had the privilege of doing the opening keynote in front of about 300 IIATE members at the Sydney Masonic Centre.

All the resources I shared throughout the conference are available on the Adobe Education Exchange via – http://bit.ly/adobe-iiate18

Ben Forta (Adobe’s Senior Director of Education Initiatives) completed his 2018 Aussie tour with a visit to Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School in Melbourne on November 26.

We worked with the Year 5s who had already experience Adobe Spark Page so we introduced them to Spark Post and Spark Video.

Each student was challenged with the task to create a Spark Post about their passions. Then to add their posts into a short Spark video that they would be happy to share.

It was lovely to be back at Strathcona where I taught for 13 years from 2000 to 2013 and see the way the school is enhancing digital literacy skills among their students and staff.

Special thank you to Eleni Kyritsis, the Junior School Leader of Digital Learning and Innovation, for making this day happen.

Later that afternoon, Ben and I (with the help from Brian Chau from Adobe) ran an Adobe professional learning event for Victorian educators at Swinburne University.

Eleni Kyritsis