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At the end of 2014, Mrs Helen Hughes is retiring as Principal of Strathcona Baptist Grammar School in Melbourne, Australia after 14 outstanding years of leadership.

Tonight was a very special cocktail party in her honour put on by the school with a large number of current and past staff, parents, board members and students in attendance.

Helen was appointed Principal in 2001, 6 months after I started teaching at Strathcona and, since I first met her, I have greatly valued her wisdom, her leadership and her friendship.

In my final years at Strathcona, I was her Director of Learning Technologies and valued working closely with Helen on a wide range of innovative projects.

Helen was my Principal for 13 years. She gave me so many opportunities to grow as an educator, as a school leader and as a person. She encouraged me to develop networks with other local, national and international schools. I will always value the opportunities she gave me that eventually led to the international education work that I now do for Adobe.

I highly valued working with Helen and learning from her.

I also appreciated the support of Helen’s husband Keith Hughes and the contribution he made to Strathcona along side Helen for many years.

My daughter is now in Year 7 at Strathcona, so I am looking forward to a continued relationship with the school as a parents and supporting its new Principal Mrs Marise McConaghy.

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Thank you Helen for the dedication you have shown to the staff, students and parents at Strathcona for the past 14 years.

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Day 1 in Manila was all about Higher Education, day 2 (2nd Dec, 2014) was all about engaging with a fabulous group of very keen and enthusiastic K-12 educators from all around the Philippines.

Some of these teachers drove for several hours to get to Manila for this event, which is not difficult to do in Manila traffic. They were very keen to hear about the Adobe Creative Cloud and how it can be used to enhance creativity in teaching and learning.

They were very interested to hear what educators from Australia, New Zealand and the USA were doing with Adobe software.

Later in the day, Greg Sisk and myself visited De La Salle College in Manila where we met with some deaf students and teachers who were passionate users of Adobe software and very keen to show us what they have been able to achieve.

This teacher showed us the sign they made up for the Adobe Creative Cloud

Here is some of the deaf student’s art work that was on display.

One of the highlights of the day was meeting Maricon Rivera, Philippines first Adobe Campus Leader. She was given permission by her Principal to have the day free to meet us.

Check out Tim’s Website                                                  Check out CreateEDU TVOn Monday 1st December I had the great pleasure to speak to a group of educators from a wide range of faculties at the oldest existing university in Asia (403 years old), University of Santo Tomas (UTS) in Manila, Philippines. It was a holiday period for the university so having so many come in especially to hear what Adobe Education had to say was humbling.

During the 2.5 hour presentation, the educators were given a number of opportunities to share their thoughts and reflections. A common theme was that university education in Philippines (like most of the world) is very tradition  and the significance of encouraging creative thinking and creative making is usually underestimated.

By the end of the morning, these educators were challenged and enthused to use Adobe creativity software in their teaching and an encourage their students to do likewise to construct their learning.

Greg Sisk, the Adobe Education account manager for Philippines, organised this trip. He has been very keen for me as an educator to come and share my experience and perspective on the difference Adobe software can make to education.

In the afternoon, we met with the Deputy Director General for Field Operations at TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority).

Here are some of the images I took while being driven around Manila for the first time. As with many Asian cities, the contrast between rich and poor is very evident.