Goulburn High School at Adobe in Sydney

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Special thank you to Goulburn High School teacher John Paopeng for organising this excursion for his students.

It was a long day for this group of Year 10 & 11 students from Goulburn High School who traveled several hours by train to meet with me at the Adobe office in Sydney on Thursday August 27, 2015.

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The students enjoyed the muffins and the view of the city from level 27.

The aim of the day was to show the students around the office, give them a taste of city working life and go through a number of the Adobe Creative Cloud applications that they have at school and home.

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The students met Wayne Weisse (Adobe’s Senior Education Business Manager).

During the workshop session, we went through tips and techniques with Adobe Photoshop,  Voice, Slate, Clip, Muse, Acrobat Pro and Premier Pro. It was a long day for the students but one they will no doubt remember for a long time.

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Gosford Public School visits Adobe

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On Wednesday August 26, a group of talented Year 5 students from Gosford Public School in NSW got up very early this morning and took the train into the city of Sydney to enjoy a day with me at the Adobe office doing a video workshop with Adobe Premier Elements.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/137347009%5D

See similar videos to this on CreateEDU TV

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The students enjoyed the view from their new classroom for the day.

The aim of the day was to enhance the students skills in capturing and editing video. They worked in a small group (production crew) to capture footage and then individually to do the editing.

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I was interviewed by one of the production crews.

One of the highlights was a tour of the Adobe office and meeting a number of the Adobe employees.

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The students even got to meet James, an 18 year old intern who is studying Commerce and Marketing at Macquarie University and doing an internship with Adobe for 6 months.

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Listing to James, an Adobe intern

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Megan Towns (NSW – AEL) special award

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Image from Megan’s Instagram post

Special congratulations to NSW Adobe Education Leader Megan Towns for receiving the Rotary Club of Wahroonga’s Vocational Teaching Award.

As stated in the official Rotary documentation, this particular award aims to honour outstanding teachers who have taken a leadership role in professional and community networks and who have supported the involvement of colleagues in external learning opportunities.

Segments from Megan’s official citation …
Megan Townes is IT integrator and English teacher at Abbotsleigh. She is responsible for inspiring teachers, departments and students to incorporate technology in effective and innovative ways. She networks with external educational innovators to ensure staff and students keep abreast of developments and opportunities in education and technology.
As an Adobe Education Leader and a Microsoft Innovative Expert Educator, Megan collaborates with educators across the country and provides leadership in the use of technology to support differentiation and inquiry based learning.
A wonderful tribute to an outstanding educator.

In an Instagram post about this award, Megan wrote Thanks to my amazing colleagues, PLN, friends, family, and especially Grant and my kids, for supporting me in the best job in the world!


The first step to becoming an Adobe Education Leader like Megan is to get involved with the Adobe Education Exchange and then apply to become an Adobe Campus Leader.

Adobe Education Events back in Brisbane

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Forest Lake State High School, in the suburbs of Brisbane, was the venue for the final of nine Adobe Education Roadshow events in Queensland throughout 2015. Between the day and the twilight events, about 40 teachers from a range of Queensland schools were entertained and informed about the many great Adobe ‘multimodal’ text solutions.

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Queensland’s very own Adobe Solution Consultant, Richard Turner-Jones demonstrated some of the great new Adobe touch apps available for iOS and Android with a particular focus on some of the design tools such as Adobe Comp, Color, Photoshop Sketch, Hue and Illustrator Draw.

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Adobe Education Leader (AEL) Beth O’Malley, from Forest Lake SHS, gave the teachers a great insight into the way she uses free Adobe touch apps like Adobe Voice, Adobe Brush, Acrobat DC, Lightroom Mobile and Adobe Shape.

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I had the pleasure of demonstrating the free Adobe touch apps Premier Clip and Adobe Slate. I particularly enjoyed hearing all the amazing educational ideas that the teachers came up with to use these free apps in the classroom.

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Kim Shepherd from Data#3 (Adobe’s sales partner for Queensland) gave the teachers valuable information about how to purchase the Creative Cloud version of Adobe’s famous desktop and laptop software.

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Heidi Fisher from XCERIO (Adobe’s certification partner) shared the advantages and process of students and teachers gaining Adobe Certification. Some of the teacher successfully took advantage of sitting some ACA certification examinations.

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The teachers were divided into a range of workshops covering print & online publications with Adobe InDesign, video editing with Adobe Premier Pro and Flipped Learning options with Adobe Presenter.

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Heidi was very excited to have a number of teachers pass an ACA examination.

To thank Forest Lake SHS for hosting, Richard & I spent the next day with a about 6 classes of Year 9 & 10 students giving them some tips and tricks with Adobe Acrobat Pro, Adobe InDesign and Edge Animate.

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Here are the links to the other 2015 Adobe Education Roadshow events in Queensland.

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SunshineCoast

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  • Find out more about the Adobe Education active use program via the great videos on CreateEDU TV

A magical day to Ignite, Innovate & Integrate

IMG_2247aWorld class Aussie magician Paul Cosentino was a big hit for hundreds of educators at the Ignite, Innovate & Integrate Conference hosted and run by Kingswood Primary School in Dingley, Melbourne.

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The Ignite, Innovate, Integrate ICT in Education Conference is a unique event because it comes from the initiative of a particular Melbourne primary school (Kingswood Primary) and now involves teachers from schools all around Melbourne and attracts presenters from interstate.

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Adobe Education Leaders Chris Betcher and Brett Kent were flown in from Sydney to present. It was great to spend some time with both of them in my home city and share this event with them.

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Alexa Cafe – encouraging girls to consider STEM

Here is yet another example of how industry standard software like Adobe’s Premier Pro video editing program can be used by young students to creatively communicate messages that are important to them.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/135962613%5D

Alexa Cafe (https://www.idtech.com/alexa-cafe/) is an all girls summer camp held each year at Palto Alto High School, California. I have had the privilege of visiting the camp in the past 2 years and seeing first hand what these students and their facilitators can achieve in just one week.

STEM stands for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics, all important careers that we should particularly be encouraging girls to consider.

Here is the video I produced with Mike McHugh (an Aussie working with Adobe in San Jose, California) in 2014.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/104794703%5D

  • Check more Adobe in Education active use videos via CreateEDU TV

Adobe QLD Roadshow in Cairns

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The Cairns School of Distance Education was the venue for 35 teachers from Northern Queensland who came together to find out more about what Adobe has to offer their students.

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Special thanks to Leigh Howser (QLD Adobe Campus Leader) who was instrumental in the organisation of this event. She presented two of her favourite Adobe mobile apps (Adobe Voice & Slate) and also ran some workshops.

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It was also a pleasure to meet Trevor Milevskiy (QLD Adobe Campus Leader) who also shared his passion for Adobe’s mobile apps and provided some excellent workshop opportunities.

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The Cairns School of Distance Education offers programs for Prep to Year 12 students across the 300,000 square kilometre area of Far North Queensland. They are a strong advocate for the creative use of Adobe products to enhance education.

Some of the feedback from the teachers included:

  • Really inspired to have students explore these programs and produce short film using premier to edit.
  • I appreciated the format of the day, that is, several short sessions on a range of topics.
  • Inspired me to try out more tools.
  • Well organised very articulately presented, inspiring content.

Adobe QLD Roadshow hits the Gold Coast

image2On Monday August 3, Marymount College, Gold Coast was the venue for the first of a series of Adobe Roadshow events in Queensland.

About 30 teachers from the Gold Coast region took part in a range of workshops that focused on Multimodal text and the Australian Curriculum.

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One of the highlights was having Beth O’Malley (QLD Adobe Education Leader from Forest Lake State High School) run a workshop and share her passion for the use of Adobe products to enhance creativity in the classroom.

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It was great to have the involvement of Richard Turner-Jones (Adobe Solution Consultant) sharing his expertise and experience with the teachers.

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The teachers also valued the opportunity to hear from Sarah Hiscock from Data#3 about how to opt into an Adobe Creative Cloud enterprise agreement, help with deployment and Heidi Fisher from XCERIO  about Adobe Certification options and links to the QCE.

Prior to the teacher sessions, Richard and I ran an Adobe Day with Year 11 students from Marymount based on video production with Adobe Premier Pro and Publication techniques with Adobe InDesign.

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Special thank you to Katrina Nicholson from Marymount College who was instrumental in initiating and organising these events.

Here are some of the comments from the feedback provided by the teachers who attended …

  • Really inspired to have students explore these programs and produce short film using premier to edit
  • Inspired me to try out more tools
  • I thought Tim was a terrific informative host
  • Very impressed with all Adobe products presented.
  • Thank you Tim and co- you covered a lot and provided multiple resources.
  • Good event I think there should be more like it so we can come together to learn and collaborate with other teachers from different schools.
  • Great PD. Loved learning about all of the mobile apps students can use in the classroom.
  • Creativity at its best! Thanks Adobe!

Surf Coast Secondary College

  • Check CreateEDU TV to see the Adobe in Education Active Use Program in action

Surf Coast Secondary College is located in picturesque Torquay, Victoria. I found this school to be a very positive community where both students and staff enjoyed working in modern learning spaces surrounded by the beauty of Victoria’s coast line. The Bass Strait ocean is in view from this school which is a jewel in the crown of Victorian Government education.

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I had the pleasure of spending a day with a group of Year 9 students, working on a range of multimodal applications within the Adobe Creative Cloud.

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We started the day playing with a beta version of the new Adobe Character Animator which became available with the July 2015 version of Adobe After Effects. This is an animation tool that controls animated characters by tracking facial movements via the computer’s web cam.

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We then had a play with Adobe Voice & Adobe Slate (Multimodal touch apps) in between of a few tips and tricks with Photoshop.

The bulk of the day was then spent working with Adobe Premier Pro with an aim to enhance the students video editing skills.

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I was very impressed with the way the students picked up the required techniques and the way they developed some very creative outcomes.