Here is a story from the QLD local news paper TheSatellite about a recent Adobe Day at Forest Lake State High School …
Not so sure about the best tech guru line in the opening paragraph.
I’m looking forward to going back to Forest Lake State High again in August.
Here is my blog post from that day.
Over the past week, I had the pleasure of attending the student showcase events for the first ever Australian versions of the Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) Program.
It was a joy to see the video work that a large number of Victorian and NSW State School students created for the AYV program. AYV is about giving students a voice and providing them with the software and skills to collaborate and communicate their stories creatively.
Special thank you to the Victorian Department of Education, the NSW Department of Education and Communities and iEarn Australia for their partnership with this program.
Stay tuned for a CreatEDU TV story about the showcase events and links to the best of the students work.
Special congratulations to Kyle Falzon from Central Institute of Technology, Western Australia for winning the 2015 Australian Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) National Championships.
Kyle will be representing Australia in the 2015 ACA World Championships to be held in Dallas Texas in August.
Special thank you to XCERIO Digital Skills Institute, Adobe’s certification partner, for organising this year’s competition.
Click here to find out more about being certified in Adobe software and potentially being involved in the 2016 ACA championships.
It was a pleasure to visit Adelaide again to run a range of Adobe in Education workshops with a wide range of South Australian educators.
On Tuesday June 16, I ran two workshops with Catholic Education South Australia. These were based on developing multimodal text skills with a range of Adobe software including Adobe Voice, Presenter, Muse, Clip, Premier Pro, Acrobat Pro and Adobe Slate.
The teachers worked well with a partner to produce some very creative stories with Adobe Voice and Premier Clip.
On the afternoon of Wednesday June 17, I had the pleasure of running an Adobe Photoshop workshop with about 30 South Australian State, Catholic & Independent school teachers at Cedar College in Adelaide’s northern suburbs. This was organised by the Business & Enterprise Teachers Association of South Australia.
We went through a range of Photoshop techniques such as shake reduction, Save for Web, Batch Resize, Content Aware Fill, Filter Gallery, Puppet Warp and others. I also ran some short demonstrations on how manipulation images with Photoshop can be published with Adobe Voice & Adobe Slate.
Special thank you to Lorraine Nitschke (Adobe Campus Leader) for organising this event.
About 350 students and about 30 teachers from around the Australian Capital Territory braved the cold and made their way to The University of Canberra for the Big Day In event on Thursday June 11.
This event was opened by former Labor Senator The Hon Kate Lundy who inspired the students to keep developing their ICT & Media skills for not only their future, but also the future of the country.
Lawrence Crumpton from Microsoft was the first keynote and was spell binding as he talked about the history of computing and outlined some of the amazing research and development that is happening at Microsoft.
Me & Lawrence
For this event, I invited Sian Beadle (Adobe Student Rep at Canberra Uni) to join me on stage to give her perspective as a young designer just about to hit the workforce after studying at Canberra University.
It was a pleasure to meet and speak to so many young people who are in the last years of secondary schooling about to go into further study &/or work.
Cheryl White from XCERIO looked after the Adobe stand and promoted Adobe Certification to the students, teachers and local Canberra University staff and students.
Sian, Me & Cheryl
Of course a trip to Canberra is never complete without a visit to Parliament House. This trip was extra special as Cheryl and I also had a meeting in The Hon Mr Pyne’s office (Federal Minster of Education).
Other Big Day In posts …
Forest Lake State High School in Brisbane invited me to run an Adobe video workshop with one of their Year 8 classes on Wednesday June 10.
We started with a some theory focused on telling good video stories and how to capture quality video & audio.
The students decided on a number of video stories to work on in small production crews based on their recent newsletter.
Each group filmed against a green screen and captured a range of other related material for their stories before uploading all their assets and working with Adobe Premier Pro to put their story together.
Special thanks to Beth O’Malley (Adobe Education Leader) for organising this special day.
Some other video workshop posts from 2015
The Big Day In roadshow hit the Gold Coast today at Griffith University with about 350 QLD and Northern NSW students and teachers finding out why they should develop their ICT & Multimedia skills to enhance their future job prospects.
It was great working with the team of XCERIO to help them promote Adobe Certification which, in Queensland, contributes credits towards the QCE (the Queensland Certificate of Education).
My main message on these events if for young people to develop a wide set of skills while they are at school and university and try and establish what their passions are. I show them examples of how young people are not waiting to leave formal study to start developing their passions into small businesses. I share with them the message of Professor Young Zhao who says that educators should be preparing young people to be global, creative and entrepreneurial.
I also show the audience some of the findings of the survey Adobe did last year with hiring managers to discover what skills they look for in the young people they hire out of school and university.
In summary, there is a growing expectation that job candidates will be tech-savy, digitally sophisticated and creative. Problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, innovation and technical specialist skills are most in demand. Students should be developing a wide set of skills and focus on creativity to set themselves apart and stand out from the crowd.
Other Big Day In posts
Ben Forta teaching Year 5 students at Strathcona about why and how Adobe Voice was created.
Ben Forta, Adobe’s Senior Director (Education Initiatives) completed his engagements in Australia by visiting with teachers and students at two schools in Melbourne. Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School and Carey Baptist Grammar School were chosen because of the innovative way they are working with mobile technologies, and the fact that I taught at both of them.
Ben and I enjoyed a tour of Strathcona’s new learning centre.
After visiting Strathcona, I drove Ben down the road to Carey a school that has a long association with my family. My Grandfather was a foundation scholar in 1923, my father went there, I was there from Year 5 to Year 12 and I taught at Carey from 1996 to 2000. The family tradition continues with two of my nieces currently there as students.
Ben met with members of Carey’s Tech Ninjas and a number of the IT and teaching staff. When the students realised who they were with, they opened up with some very engaging questions.
Carey’s eLearning Co-ordinator, Kylie Taig taking notes while Ben speaks to the Carey Tech Ninjas.
From Brisbane, to Sydney to Melbourne, it has been a busy and very successful tour of Australia’s east coast for Ben. It is a rare opportunity for Australian teachers and students to have a direct connection with the makers of Adobe software. Ben’s visit to Australia was very much appreciated and I know that he enjoyed all the opportunities to meet with a wider range of Aussie teachers and students.
Ben Forta (Adobe’s Senior Director – Education Initiatives) and I meet with a number of educators and students in Sydney today to find out what Adobe can do to enhance the education process.
We flew in from Brisbane and went straight to Roseville College, a Anglican Girls School. Abi Woldhuis (Adobe Campus Leader) and Henrietta Miller (Adobe Education Leader) organised a program of student and teacher engagement, including a lovely lunch with the school executive.
After a wonderful few hours at Roseville, Ben & I rushed to the Adobe office in Darling Harbour where we met with a number of NSW Adobe Education Leaders, Adobe Campus Leaders and other educators for a research meeting and dinner.
Ben was given some great feedback from everyone he met today that he will be able to send directory to the various production teams at Adobe in the US.
Tomorrow, we are off to visit two Melbourne schools.
Adobe’s Senior Director (Education Initiatives) Ben Forta flew to Brisbane from the US to meet with educators at the 2015 EduTECH Conference. Ben is part of the Adobe product team for Adobe Voice & Slate. He is in Australia this week to research how these products are being used in schools and how they can be improved for the future.
Dr Tim Kitchen's Journal - Creativity in Education 