• Have you checked the education professional learning opportunities available via the Adobe Education Exchange?

Michael Leigh (Adobe Customer Success Manager) and I spent the last two consecutive Fridays working with a range of educators, trainers and students from the University of Western Sydney.

Over the two days, we looked at a wide range of Adobe solutions such as Premier Pro, Premier Clip, Photoshop, InDesign, Adobe Voice, Slate, Acrobat Pro and Adobe Muse.

It was especially great working with the students doing the Solar Car Challenge and showing them how they can document and brand their achievements is a range of creative ways.

Quakers Hill High School is one of a number of schools in New South Wales and Victoria involved in the Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) program.

Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) ignites young people’s Creative Confidence—the ability to har­ness creative skills to solve problems—thereby empowering them to find their voice and make it heard. AYV is the Adobe Foundation’s signature global initiative to increase creativity in educa­tion, which is critical to improving the lives of young people today and well into the future.

http://youthvoices.adobe.com/about

Quaker’s Hill High School teacher Smriti Mediratta organised an excursion for her AYV students, who ranged for Year 7 to 9, to spend a day with me at the Adobe office in Sydney doing a video workshop with a focus on how to work with Adobe Premier Elements.

In previously arranged production groups, the students had some great topic ideas for the video project they are doing for the AYV program. I was able to give them some help and ideas to make the most of the pre-production, filming and post-production phases of good video stories.

Some of the students had worked with Premier Elements and for others it was their first experience with this video editing software.

By the end of the day, the Quakers Hill High AYV students were well on their way with the projects.

• A video on this event is coming soon to CreateEDU TV .

Wednesday May 20 was the day that Sydney Secondary College (Leichhart) visited the Adobe office in Sydney for a video workshop.

Mr Andy Calvert with some of his Leichhadrt students.

Mr Andy Calvert organised this excursion for his students to work with Adobe’s video expert Jon Barrie (JB) and myself. The students with some video production experience had a master class with JB, while those who had minimal experience worked with me.

Jon Barrie, Adobe Video Solution Consultant, running a video master class with students from Sydney Secondary College, Leichhardt Campus.

The students worked well in their teams and produced some very creative videos.

• Do you know a teacher who would benefit from being part of the Adobe Campus Leader program.

Congratulations to Leigh Howser (Adobe Campus Leader) from Cairns, Queensland who was recently announced as the 2015 ACCE/ACS Educator of the Year Award Winner.

Leigh Howser with me at the AEL/ACL Bootcamp in Melbourne – April, 2015

This award is a collaboration between the Australian Council for Computers in Education and the Australian Computer Society.  The winner is selected from all of ACCE’s  affiliated state based association award winners.

Leigh is the eLearn Mentor at the Cairns School of Distance Education. She has a strong passion for creativity in education and has been a great advocate for the use of creative Adobe products in the classroom during her time as an Adobe Campus Leader.

Leigh with Margaret Young (Victorian AEL – Adobe Education Leader)

Click here to see the official ACCE Awards site to find out more about Leigh and why she has received this much coveted education award.

Leigh has been instrumental in organising the Adobe in QLD Classrooms roadshow event in Cairns planned for August 6, 2015 at her school, the Cairns School of Distance Education.

Let me encourage you to follow in Leigh’s footsteps and get involved with your local state based chapter of the ACCE. The full list is available via:

http://acce.edu.au/about-acce/members-and-affiliations

Also consider becoming an Adobe Campus Leader like Leigh.

• Check CreateEDU TV to find more about what has been happening in the world of Adobe in Education in Asia Pacific.
• Check Tim’s website

Caroline Chisholm Catholic College was the venue for the first of a series of teacher workshops run by DLTV (Digital Learning and Teaching Victoria) and Adobe Education on Monday May 11.

This three hour workshop was titled Mastering multimodal text with a range of Adobe solutions. Multimodality is a term repeated throughout the Australian Curriculum and during this workshop we explored a range of Adobe products and how they can be used by teachers and students in the teaching and learning process.

We worked with Adobe Voice, Adobe Presenter, Adobe Slate, Adobe Muse, Adobe Clip, Premier Pro, InDesign and Acrobat.

Using Adobe Clip to create a short video sequence

This session will be repeated in Melbourne’s east at Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School on June 24. Click here for more information and registration.

Special thanks to Kev Lavery (Adobe Campus Leader) media teacher at Caroline Chisholm Catholic College for helping to organise this event.

The next Adobe & DLTV events are …

Caroline Chisholm events:

• Thurs July 30 – What is flipped learning all about and how does Adobe help? https://dltv.vic.edu.au/events/f2f305-what-flipped-learning-all-about-and-how-does-adobe-help
• Thurs Sept 3 – Simple ePortfolios with Adobe Acrobat Pro. https://dltv.vic.edu.au/events/f2f306-simple-eportfolios-adobe-acrobat-pro

Strathcona events:

• Wednesday June 24 – Mastering multimodal text with a range of Adobe solutions. https://dltv.vic.edu.au/events/f2f213-mastering-multimodal-text-range-adobe-solutions
• Tuesday July 28 –  What is flipped learning all about and how does Adobe help? https://dltv.vic.edu.au/events/f2f304-what-flipped-learning-all-about-and-how-does-adobe-help
• Monday Nov 16 – Simple ePortfolios with Adobe Acrobat Pro. https://dltv.vic.edu.au/events/f2f407-simple-eportfolios-adobe-acrobat-pro

• Have you join the Adobe Education Exchange?

I had the pleasure working with a group of passionate independent school educators in Western Australia and in Perth within a few days of each other.

Friday May 8 was a video masterclass workshop with AISWA (Australian Independent School Western Australia). The aim of this workshop was to help teachers develop skills and confidence in video literacy with Adobe Premier Pro, Premier Clip, After Effects, Adobe Presenter and Adobe Voice so that they can share ideas with their colleagues and students.

Tuesday May 12 was a full day workshop at ISV (Independent School Victoria) titled Adobe Creative Cloud in the Classroom. This was an opportunity for a group of independent school teachers from a range of school throughout Victoria to spend some time going though a wide range of Adobe Creative Cloud and other Adobe application and explore their potential for learning and teaching.

The applications looked at on this day included Photoshop, Voice, Acrobat, InDesign, Slate, Muse, Edge Animate, Presenter, Clip and Premier Pro.

Here are a range of comments from the feedback from each of these events …

Tim gave a fabulous overview of the current placement of Adobe programs and their inter connectivity and the expansive possibilities for easy integration across education.

A highlight was the emphasis on Creativity – Seeing how easy the Creative Cloud is – especially in the hands of teachers and students who use these products and develop strong skill sets to prepare young people for the future.

Wish I had soon much more time…….

I would love another couple of days worth of this sort of PD

A highlight was viewing the possibilities for Adobe Voice

Tim is so energetic!  How can you not be energised!

Tim is a fabulous presenter.

• Check CreateEDU TV to find more about what has been happening in the world of Adobe in Education in Asia Pacific.

The Australian Computer Society Foundation’s ‘Big Day In‘ roadshow rolled into Perth Town Hall on Thursday May 7.

Over 400 students from a wide range of schools throughout the Perth region witnessed a range of speakers all encouraging them to consider a career in ICT.

For this event, I was delighted to share the stage with Catherine Woolfe, Adobe’s Student Rep from Edith Cowan University.

Catherine shared her passion for creativity and the importance of being creative in everything your do. This complemented my similar message and my encouragement for students to further develop their ICT & Design skills and to brand themselves in positive ways so that they get a head of pack when looking for future study and employment prospects.

It was great working with Gareth Cowen from XCERIO (formally IC Central) who helped look after the Adobe stand with a big push for Adobe Certification. George from Central Institute of Technology was also on hand to help answer questions about Adobe Certification.

• Have you join the Adobe Education Exchange?

Wednesday May 6 was a creative day of video production with Year 7 Boys of Scotch College Perth and their neighboring girls schools PLC.

PLC Girls & Scotch Boys after a busy day of film making with Adobe Premier Pro

I’m always impressed with how quickly students pick up the techniques involved in making videos with Adobe Premier Pro. These students were no exception during a day when they worked together in mixed groups to produce a 2 minute film to show their peers.

Each group was tasked with planning, filming, editing and exporting a video story about the school. Some chose to feature the green screen capabilities within Premier Pro. It is great to see students this age being confident with industry standard applications and developing collaboration, communication and problem solving skills that will stand them in good stead for the future.

Special thank you to Jared Faint from Scotch College for organising this event following the success of last year’s similar day that can be viewed via CreateEDU TV on – https://vimeo.com/113822632

• Check CreateEDU TV to find more about what has been happening in the world of Adobe in Education in Asia Pacific.

On Tuesday, May 5 I was invited by Daniel Budd (AEL) to run a special Adobe in Education workshop for a range of teachers at Christ Church Grammar in Perth, Western Australia.

During this whole day event, we spent the morning focusing on Flipped Learning tools such as Adobe Voice, Adobe Clip, Adobe Presenter and Premier Pro.

The afternoon had a focus on online and print tools such as Adobe Slate, Muse, Acrobat, InDesign and Edge Animate.

Here are some images of the day.

Some the comments in the feedback included …

Overall the entire presentation was highly engaging and I was particularly impressed with Adobe’s new programs including slate and muse.

A highlight was becoming aware of the breadth of software packages and the different levels of complexity. More importantly how to apply them to what I am doing in the Senior Library

• Have you join the Adobe Education Exchange? 

The University of Newcastle, was the venue for a NSW regional ‘Big Day In’ event held last Thursday, April 30, 2015. About 420 students from the Hunter Valley region gathered in the university’s Great Hall to hear from a wide range of industry representatives encouraging them to consider a future career in ICT.

420 students at the Big Day In – Newcastle, NSW

It was terrific to share the stage with Priyanka Chitnis, like we did early in the year at the UTS event. She is soon to graduate from the University of New South Wales and, as an Adobe Rep, has been an inspiration to many students encouraging them to think outside the square and be creative in all they do.

Sharing the stage with Priyanka Chitnis, Adobe Student Rep from UNSW

It was also lovely to work again with Heidi Fisher for XCERIO (formally known at IC Central) who was promoting certification options for students in Adobe software.

Heidi Fisher (XCERIO) & Priyaka Chitnis at the Adobe stand promoting Adobe Certification

Special thanks to the Australian Computer Society Foundation and Digital Careers for running the ‘Big Day In’ events throughout the country. I’m looking forward to Perth next week.

Here are links to my posts on other Big Day In events so far this year …

Wagga Wagga

Sydney – UTS

• Find out more about Industry recognised Ad0be Certification
• Check CreateEDU TV to find more about what has been happening in the world of Adobe in Education in Asia Pacific.