Tim’s Website

Last Saturday, students from all over Victoria visited the SAP Melbourne office on StKilda Rd to have their ICT projects judged at the Young ICT Explorers competition.

It was a pleasure to be on a judging panel with Justin Williams (General Manager, SAP) and Therese Keane (Swinburne University). Together we were delighted to hear from a wide range of students and see the amazing ICT projects they produced for this outstanding competition.

Young ICT Explorers is a non-profit competition, which has been created by SAP to encourage school students to create their best Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related projects.

http://www.youngictexplorers.net.au

It was so great to see these young people learning how to code and use the great creativity software available to them to produce so many innovative projects.

It has been a pleasure to catch up with the ELH (Expanding Learning Horizons) regulars and the many new to this outstanding education conference experience organised so professionally by Computelec for so many years.

http://www2.computelec.com.au/elhschooltech2014

I recall my first ever experience talking to a large group of educators was at ELH 1999 when I was a primary teacher at Carey Baptist Grammar School and a self confessed guru with PowerPoint. How things have changed.

It is always great to hear from Dr Gary Stager (Seymour Papert disciple and internationally recognised ICT in Education guru).

Interesting quotes from Gary’s keyote

“When ideas come to school they seem to loose their power” Seymour Papert

Schools should be in the business of solving problems they don’t know are problems.

Making should permeate the entire school day.

It’s a powerful learning experience to make things, even more powerful to make things work

Computers have been in schools for 35 year, it’s time to take advantage of them

Programming is a really rich thing for kids to learn

The breakout sessions are always high quality at ELH. The contribution from Stephen Harris’ Norther Beaches Christian School team was outstanding.

Steve Collis (Northern Beaches Christian School, NSW ) ‘When Culture Tips’

Gala Dinner – Great Gatsby Theme

Tim’s Website

One of our Western Australian AELs (Adobe Education Leaders), Angela Bartels from Lockridge Senior High School, organised a fabulous opportunity for senior primary students near her school to visit Lockridge and experience what being in secondary school is like for a day – with an Adobe flavour.

Angela Bartels

Here is what she wrote in her newsletter …

All Year 6 and 7 students were given the opportunity to visit Lockridge SHS and experience a day at high school. Students had a curriculum rich and creative day.

Students were provided with the opportunity to decorate cakes, make Avatars in Adobe Photoshop and notepads in Design and Technology. These were just some of the highlights of the day.

Lockridge SHS Specialist Programs, Basketball, Agriculture and Contemporary Music were main features of the day as were the Science experiments run by Mr Chedid.

Lockridge SHS thoroughly enjoyed hosting your Year 6 and 7 students and have produced a digital record of the day, which will very soon be shown at your assembly.

Lockridge SHS has strong affiliations with software giant Adobe and have an Adobe Education Leader on staff ensuring creativity is indeed embedded in the curriculum.

Competitions were run throughout the day and thanks must go to Adobe for providing prizes that provided creative encouragement.

A truly creative day was had by all.

Tim’s Website

The last couple of days at the Adobe Head Office in San Jose (California) have been some of the most in-depth professional learning I have been involved with in nearly 25 years working in Education.

The 2014 AEL (Adobe Education Leader) Institute  along side the Adobe Youth Voices conference, an Un-conference and a Virtual conference live across the globe have been an outstanding combination.

Here is a short video that outlines some of the activities and thoughts from participants.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/101406614%5D

Here is Brett Kent’s video story on his time at the AEL Institute.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/101890566%5D

These, and other, videos can be found on Adobe’s new vimeo channel CreateEDU TV

Tim’s Website

Earlier this week I visted three Queensland Education Schools that are part of the Schools of Creative Excellence Program. Forest Lake State High in Brisbane, Merrimac State High on the Gold Coast and Tullawong State High in the Sunshine Coast.

Each of these schools are leading the way in Queensland with the use of their newly gained Adobe Creative Cloud software to help enhance creativity in the learning and teaching process.

At Forest Lake, I was invited to take a Year 8 Science class and show them how to present their learning in video format.

Here is Keith Netscher (Deputy Principal of Forest Lake State High School) reflecting on the impact of the SOCE program so far at his school.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/101165865%5D

Merrimac State High School, in the heart of Queensland’s Gold Cost was my second visit.

Chris Tobin, the Principal of Merrimac, made the Creativity Pledge and recorded his reflections on the program. Stay tuned for the video.

Chris Tobin, Principal of Merrimac State High School.

Steffi (Merrimac’s School Captain) took the creativity pledge.

Special thanks to Nathan Pugliese and Rose Duggan for organising the Merrimac visit

My third and final visit for this trip was Tullawong State High School located at the south of the Sunshine Cost.

I was guest speaker at their open day and official launch of the Schools of Creative Excellence. One of the many displays included a computer lab full of student samples of work made with Adobe products.

Deb Murphy, Principal of Tullawong, gave her creativity pledge – video to follow.

Deb Murphy – Tullawong Principal

I would like to thank Geoff Hooton and the other Adobe Education Leaders at Tullawong for helping to make this event such a success.

Geoff Hooton, Tullawong Adobe Education Leader

Tim’s Website

The 2014 Adobe Education Virtual Conference is being held on 22^nd & 23^rd July (APAC time) titled Sparking Creative Catalysts.

Click the image below to see an Adobe Voice message about this event.

Register to access & find out more via …

http://edu.adobeeventsonline.com/2014/VirtualConference/

 This event is being held as part of the Adobe Education Leaders Institute at the Adobe Head Office in San Jose, California.

Live sessions that work for Asia Pacific times are listed below:

22^nd July

8.20 AM (Auckland time)

Creativity in Education Session
Teaching Business for Creatives—Best Practices

Renée Human, Northern Kentucky University
Learn about a course on business for creatives entitled the Business of Media Informatics taught at Northern Kentucky University. In this course, students learn to launch their professional careers and build and maintain a business. In a field where nearly three-fourths of all media designers and developers freelance at some point, students need to understand and develop key business practices.

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7 AM – 7.40 AM (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne)

9 AM – 9.40 AM (Aukland)

Creativity in Education Session
Students Become Entrepreneurs with the Sentinel Design Lab—Best Practices

Cindy Schultz, Sentinel High School
This session introduces an innovative way for students to become entrepreneurs using Adobe products in the high school classroom and beyond. This program is a unique example of 21st century education at its best: an environment where students work with instructors to shape their own education and become productive members of the community. Students in this program receive experience and training vitally needed in the rapidly expanding digital design market, along with opportunities for critical thinking, collaboration, leadership, entrepreneurship, and problem solving.

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8 AM – 8.40 AM (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne)

10 AM – 10.40 (Aukland)

The Creative Application of Education—Discussion

Erik Natzke, Adobe, Principal Designer, Experience Design
Einstein famously said, “Knowledge is limited; but imagination encircles the world.” The knowledge we acquire does empower us. But it isn’t until we find new and imaginative ways to apply this knowledge, that we begin to evolve ourselves. The mechanisms for acquiring knowledge and applying creativity are generally in conflict with one another. One is the systematic absorption of information and the other is a mode of play that often disrupts our progress to shake out discovery and gain a greater understanding of the known body of knowledge. The real trick comes when you can complete the loop and have play inspire learning and vice versa.

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7 am – 9 am (Perth, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur)

9 am – 11 am (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne)

11 am – 1 Pm (Auckland

Leadership Session
Storytelling Boot Camp—Training

Melissa Jones, Adobe and Pip Cleaves, Design | Learn | Empower
The ability to tell your story is essential for any leader and innovator. Want to be a Creative and Innovative Leader? Then you need to be able to tell your story. You need to be able to help others to understand why your cause is so important to you and to them. Help them to see why they should join in creativity in Education. This hands-on workshop will give you time to build your own narrative, and help you tell your own story and, in doing so, bring others to a common understanding of what drives you to do what you do.

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23^rd July

8.20 AM (Aukland)

Creativity in Education Session
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Common Core—Interactive

Kim Cavanaugh, Palm Beach County School District and David Olinger, O’Dea High
With the Common Core standards adoption well underway in the US, the question becomes not “if” our students will use creative software to meet the objectives of the Common Core, but “how” teachers and schools can promote solutions that encourage students to be creative. In this session participants will learn strategies for incorporating authentic assessments that use creative software tools from Adobe, see examples that use interactive tools to collect and evaluate student work that is aligned to the Common Core, and share their own experiences in the challenges of meeting the requirements of these new standards.

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7 AM – 7.40 AM (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne)

9 AM – 9.40 AM (Aukland)

Digital Media Session
How a Pen Transformed a Company—Discussion

David Macy, Adobe, Principal Designer, Experience Design
David Macy will demo Adobe’s first tools for the new creative—Project Mighty and Napoleon. Through natural interface, cloud connectivity, and now new hardware, Adobe is starting the process of creating tools for the next generation of creative. David will share how these tools are not only redefining the playing field for designers, but are also transforming and inspiring an entire company.

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8 AM – 8.40 AM (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne

10 AM – 10.40 (Aukland)

Creativity in Education Session
Fishbowl on Assessment, Accreditation & Gamification in Education—Panel / Discussion

Ian Usher, Buckinghamshire County Council; Greg Hodgson, The Wycombe Grange; Kelly Kermode, Eastern High School; Rob Schwartz, Sheridan Technical High School; and Mike Skocko, Valhalla High School
Explore the various strategies AELs use to motivate and recognize learning for different audiences—through games, certification, open badge systems, and more. Do these efforts help students better demonstrate what they learn and showcase that learning outside their classroom? Participate in the discussion yourself in a Fishbowl session and help refine the ways AELs can implement such approaches.

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7.45 – 8.10 AM (Perth, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur)

9.45 AM – 10.10 AM (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne)

11.45 AM – 12.10 (Aukland)

Adobe Resources and Programs for Educators and Reflection Point

Tacy Trowbridge, Adobe Group Manager Education Programs

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