Ben Forta and I spent Thursday 8th June in the winter warmth of Brisbane with about 450 students at a Bid Day In and later with a group of local teachers.
The Brisbane Big Day In was again held at The University of Queensland and involved about 450 students from all over Queensland. Ben’s key message was for the students to develop their creativity, collaboration and communication skills.
Ben referred to research indicating that industry tends to believe students are generally not prepared for the future workplace.
As a current employer of young people, Ben suggested that a great way to demonstrate skills is for students to establish a portfolio of their work while they are still at school. He encouraged the students to look for opportunities to build websites, make apps, create videos and other digital resources for anyone who needs them or for school assignments and display these artifacts in an ongoing digital portfolio.
My job was to show the students what Adobe Software they should learn to use to help them enhance their digital communication skills.
Ben and I met with many of the students during the breaks and showed them how to work with the free Adobe Spark apps and we gave them links to a range of resources such as the Adobe Help & Support site.
Later that evening, Ben & I ran a special teacher professional learning event for a number of Queensland teachers from a wide range of sectors. This was very kindly hosted by Brigidine College under the leadership of Assistant Principal Paul Bennett.
Adobe Spark was the focus with most of the teachers having little to no experience with these amazing creativity apps.
Julliette Bentley from Mt St Michaela’s College shared some of the amazing work she has been doing with her students as they use the Adobe Spark apps to enhance students writing skills.
Here are some more images from the event …
Dr Tim Kitchen's Journal - Creativity in Education 