Sue Bell (Adobe Education Leader) invited Brett Kent (AEL) and me to present at the TasRes Publishing Workshops at MONA near Hobart, Tasmania on the weekend of Oct 31 and Nov 1.

TasRes is an art and technology residence group based in Tasmania and this event was for writers, educators, journalists, designers and bloggers interested in self-publishing.

Thanks to Sue Bell for this image which was tweeted during my session titled ‘Effective social media strategies’.

Brett, teaching some basic Adobe Photoshop techniques.

Images of the Mona Gallery

Video workshops on day 2

The focus on day 2 was video production with Premier Pro. We worked on two video projects, one book trailer and a promotion for future workshops.

Recording the piece to camera sequences for the book trailer.

Recording interviews for the TasRes promotion video.

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHpqcFo_j90&feature=youtu.be%5D

On Thursday October 29, I had the pleasure of working with a group of senior teachers from Northern Bay College in Geelong, Victoria who are developing a whole school approach to Flipped Learning and were keen to see what Adobe had to offer.

I started the workshop by giving these teachers a chance to play with Adobe Presenter Video Express which is still the easiest way for the average teacher, with minimal video editing experience, to make a quality video about a key concept that they want their students to understand. Version 11 also has a feature that allows for the presenter to be keyed into a range of cool looking backgrounds. It also features the ability to add quiz questions that are embedded within the video to test the student’s understanding.

After playing with Presenter, we explored a range of the free Adobe mobile apps including Voice, Clip & Slate. We look at these not only as way for teachers to provide content for a flipped learning experience but also for students to use as a way of constructing their learning with the time saved in a flipped classroom, when less time is being used by a teacher talking to the whole class.

The resources I shared during this session are available via the Adobe Education Exchange via:

bit.ly/adobe-nbay15

The first ever Junior Big Day In was held at Hilltop Road Public School in Merrylands, NSW on Tuesday October 27.

This event was run by the Australian Computer Society Foundation with an aim to encourage Year 4-6 students to explore an interest in STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics.

John Ridge AM, Executive Director of the ACS Foundation, said: “We’ve been wanting to take a highly motivating version of BiG Day In to a younger audience for some time. It’s vital that we help plant in the minds of junior students the link between STEM subjects and fascinating, challenging, remunerative careers in the future. In collaboration with the amazingly committed and innovative staff at Hilltop Rd PS, we’ve created a hands-on, activity-based day – these kids are in for some serious fun.”

Dr Karsten Schultz (Digital Careers) sharing the how and why of computational thinking.

Computational Thinking was a major theme with students being taught by a range of providers with a focus on simple coding.

Brett Kent teaching Adobe Muse & Illustrator.

Communicating creativity with 21st century tools was also a focus of two workshops that the students were involved with. One was on online publication with Adobe Muse & Adobe Illustrator run by Adobe Education Leader Brett Kent and the other was on story telling and video production with Adobe Voice run by Adobe Campus Leader Rita Maroun.

Rita Maroun, teaching Adobe Voice

Natalie See, Principal of Hilltop Road Public School, said: “We pride ourselves on delivering outstanding education. Our school is a leader in embedding innovative technology into our teaching environments to enable increased opportunities for our students. The BiG Day In will not only capture the imagination of those students who already love playing and learning with technology, but more importantly, will open the eyes of so many who don’t yet understand the boundless possibilities that the STEM subjects offer.”

The students made F1 cars in advance of the day and were able to test their speed and each other starting reaction time.

A number of ACS partners helped support the delivery of this new program and made significant contributions in terms of people and time to help make the day a roaring success: Westpac, Microsoft, Adobe, University of Technology Sydney, National Computer Science School from Sydney University, Code Camp and Digital Careers. Special thanks to Mike Myers who will display his Formula 1 car at the school for the event.

Stay tuned for the video about this day on

CreateEDU TV

On Wednesday October 21 about 30 Year 5 students from Nakara Primary School in Darwin (Northern Territory (NT), Australia) took part in a very special Adobe Day organised by the Northern Territory Department of Education.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/143230535%5D

The morning was spent at the school where the students took part in a series of activities to learn how to use Adobe Voice, Slate and Premier Clip, three of Adobe’s outstanding iPad apps.

In the afternoon, the students were bused to the very impressive NT Parliament House to be journalists. They worked in small groups to document stories relating to the Parliament House and surrounds using one of the three Adobe apps.

Students filming an interview with NT’s Serjeant-at-Arms

Some of the students were able to interview The Hon. Peter Chandler (Minister for Education, Police, Fire and Emergency Services, Transport, Infrastructure and Veterans Support).

The Hon. Peter Chandler

Some students interviewed their local member of Parliament The Hon. Lauren Moss (Member for Casuarina).

It was an amazing day of learning and fun. I was very impressed with the way the student all worked together as apprentice journalist with the Adobe apps to produce some great stories.

Stay tuned for the CreateEdu TV video …

On the morning of Tuesday October 20, I had the pleasure of working with a number of Northern Territory (NT) educators at Dripstone Middle School in Darwin with a focus on what the Adobe Creative Cloud offers education.

This was my first trip to the NT since working for Adobe. Earlier this year, a large number of NT schools took up an enterprise agreement with Adobe allowing them to provide their students, teachers and admin staff access to the latest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premier Pro, Muse, Edge Animate, Fash, Acrobat Pro and all the creativity and productivity software found within the Adobe Creative Cloud.

Special thank you to Mark Christie (right), Director eLearning Systems and his boss Satpinder Daroch (center) Acting Chief Information Officer, Department of Education, Northern Territory Government. Mark and his team were instrumental in organising this week’s engagements in Darwin.

I introduced the educators to Character Animator, a new feature of the Adobe Creative Cloud.

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In the afternoon, I visited Casuarina Senior College were we had a focus on Acrobat Pro, the Adobe Education Exchange and a range of the free Adobe Mobile Apps.

In the evening, it was lovely to catch up with life long friends and enjoy the Darwin sunset.

I was impressed with how many educators I met at The Digital Show, an event designed for creative professionals with a focus on photography and video which is held every two years. One of the largest consumer technology events in the Southern Hemisphere, this year it was held from October 16 to 18 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Adobe had a strong presence at this event with a large demonstration area running a continuous stream of presentations on a wide variety of topics focused mainly on Photoshop & Lightroom solutions.

Professional photographer, author, educator and Photoshop guru Mark Galer was a very popular presenter along with Adobe Solution Consultants Matt Davis and Brian Chau.

Mark Galer in action sharing his expertise.

Matt Davis

Brian Chau

I visited my friends at the Wacom stand and was given a demonstration of a great new product that would be great in the classroom called Bamboo Spark.

Bamboo Spark appears to be a nice compromise between old technology like paper and pen as well as the modern technology found within digital mobile applications.

Adobe

Thursday 16th October 2015 was the day a select group of Year 3 to 5 students from Cromer Public School in NSW enjoyed an Adobe Day at Adobe’s office in Darling Harbour Sydney.

The students arrived prepared with scripts and lots of ideas for a range of video stories to produce with Adobe Premier Elements.

The students worked in production crews to film what they had scripted.

Cromer Public School teacher, Mrs Mitchell and Ian (one the dads – and a secondary multimedia teacher) helped the students with the filming and editing.

The students had a tour of the office and many said that they would like to work at Adobe when they get older. Some said that they now want to work on film and television.

The students were not able to complete their stories with the limited time available on the day but they are looking forward to completing the project when they get back to school.

It was a great Adobe Day with students from Cromer Public School.

Jessica Gauci is a teacher at Picton High School in country New South Wales and one of our star Adobe Campus Leaders (ACL). On Wednesday October 14, I had the pleasure of running an Adobe Day with some of her students and colleagues.

Jessica, working with one of the production crews as they plan their video project.

Filming ‘Captain Clueless’

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/142362939%5D

Check out the very very short film, Captain Clueless.

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I ran an Adobe focused professional learning session with some of the staff at Picton High once the students had gone home and I had the rare opportunity to meet one of Picton High’s regular after school guests …

On Tuesday October 13, a group of talented Year 9 students from Sydney Boys High School visited the Adobe office in Darling Harbour for an Adobe Day focusing on video production.

Before getting stuck into their video projects, the boys had a tour of the Adobe office.

The boys enjoyed the facilities in the Adobe lunch room.

They met with Adobe Solution Consultant Jamie Ragen.

After the office tour, the boys were given a challenge to produce a 2 minute video or short film within the confines of the Adobe office that followed the seven second rule, where the visuals change at least every seven seconds to keep the interest of an audience.

The Year 9 students working on their pre-production planning.

The boys worked well as a production crew to film their stories.

The students used Adobe Premier to edit their stories.

Here is a sample of what one of the groups achieved in only a few hours …

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/142229726%5D

The 2015 YGAP Polished Man Campaign is in the last few days. Here is Elliot Costello (YGAP CEO – and my cousin) to tell more …

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/142086169%5D

I’m proud to me a Polished Man. If you would like to sponsor me, go to https://au.polishedman.com/timkitchen