Here is a recording from my presentation filmed at the Sydney Big Day In at UTS on 20th March, 2018

The new Learning and Teaching Building at the Monash University Clayton Campus was the venue for an Adobe professional learning event for Monash teachers on Thursday 21st June, 2018.

Over 20 lectures and support staff from a range of faculties registered for this event. Some were experienced Adobe users keen to refine their skills. Others were brand new to the world of what Adobe offers to educators.

We work-shopped and demonstrated a range of useful Photoshop techniques that are helpful for teachers such as:

• compressing large image files for online use
• batch compressing lots of large images file
• using the content aware fill tool to take out unwanted objects on an image
• working with the perspective warp tool to adjust the perspective of individual image layers

We did some Adobe Spake activities and made a short video with Spark video. The Adobe Spark video were new to most of them.

I did a demonstration of Character Animator and we discussed how a range of the Adobe Creative Cloud apps and Adobe’s mobile apps are used in schools and universities around the world.

I also had the pleasure of introducing the new beta version of Project Rush, Adobe’s most resent video app that is now available to try.

The Adobe for Academics site on the Adobe Education Exchange was promoted. This is a great portal of resources for for those wanting to make the most of their Adobe tools in higher education.

My friend Roland Gesthuizen, who is a lecturer in the Education faculty at Monash, very proudly gave me a tour of the new Learning and Teaching building that was opened at the start of this year.

I was very impressed with the architecture and the emphases on student focused, collaborative learning spaces, rather than the traditional teacher centered approach i see in so many schools and universities around the world.

The main lecture theatre space looks more like a restaurant than a lecture theatre. Its open plan circular design and focus on small group interaction is a refreshing change from the traditional approach. Students are encouraged to interact with the concepts being taught and when a more didactic approach is required, the technology in the room is such that attention can be on the lecturer and the screens.

Here are some more images I took of the learning spaces and the building …

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The following video gives you a better understanding of the architecture of this outstanding building …

On Wednesday 20th June, over 50 lecturers from a variety of faculties at Swinburne University registered for an Adobe awareness event focused on recruiting Swinburne Adobe Champions.

Swinburne University is keen to have a team of Adobe Champions who could be the go to people for faculty members and students when they are looking for support in the use of Adobe products to help them teach and learn.

Swinburne’s own Dr Max Schleser is an Adobe Education Leader and he shared with his colleagues the value of being part of the Adobe in Education leadership network.

Peter O’Doherty from Prodigy Learning spoke about the value of Adobe Certification. Prodigy Learning is the local partner for Certiport who look after certification for Adobe & Microsoft.

Brian Chau (Adobe Solutions Consultant) and I ran a series of Adobe product demonstrations to share the value of Adobe XD, Photoshop, Character Animator and Adobe Spark in education.

We are hoping this will be the start of a great network of Adobe Champions for Swinburne.

The main resources I shared during this event are now available on the Adobe Education Exchange via – http://bit.ly/adobe20June18

I’ve been waiting for a long time to be able to publicly share this with you. When I met with the Adobe Premiere Product Team in California in July 2017, I was given a sneak preview of what Project Rush was hoping to become and I was hooked.

A lot of teachers and students have been looking for a video making app that has more features than Premiere Clip, Adobe Spark and iMovie but without the often percieved complication of the professional Adobe Premiere Pro.

Project Rush is now available as a beta version. Please click here to apply to access.

What I love about Project Rush is that you can make your videos on the go with both your mobile phone, your tablet device and your desktop.

It features built-in camera functionality enabling anyone to take pro-quality video on their mobile devices. Editing is a breeze, with easy to use tools for colour correction, audio, motion graphics and more.

When it comes to titles, change the colour, size, font and more to make them unique.

Leveraging the power of Premiere Pro CC, Project Rush helps take your videos from amateur to amazing.

I can’t wait to see what teachers and students can do with this tool creativity tool from Adobe.

There are not many primary schools that have their own media centre, equipped with an infinity wall green screen for video production and a podcast studio. Silverton Primary, in Melbourne’s Noble Park, prides itself on providing its students with opportunities to develop modern media & communication skills to help enhance their students digital literacy and creativity skills.

On Tuesday 19th June, I had the pleasure to spending a day with all the Year 5/6 students, introducing them to Adobe Spark video as a tool to help them tell video stories.

The students were asked to work in a small group to create a short video about their passions. The challenge was to have the story completed in 15 minutes.

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The culture of the school is such that the students are comfortable working with new technologies. I was very impressed with what they were able to achieve in such a short space of time.

Later that afternoon, I worked with the Silverton Primary teaching staff and gave them the same challenge as I gave the students.

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It is always a delight to witness teachers discover a new technology that helps enable their creativity. It was great to hear the teachers chat about all the different ways they can use the Adobe Spark products in their classrooms to enhance the teaching & learning process.

About forty teachers from ten different schools/universities registered for a special after school Adobe professional learning event in Auckland on Wednesday 13th June hosted at Avondale College.

Special thank you to Jane Chen from Adobe, local Auckland Teacher Donna Golightly and Paul McClean from Avondale for offering a range of workshop options for the teachers.

The feedback from this event featured the following comments …

• My mind has exploded!
• Excellent session!!
• This has been an awesome session that I wish that I had more time learning about Adobe. Photoshop was just so amazing!! Kids would definitely love to learn more about it especially with animation!
• A highlight was understanding basic tools in Photoshop to create cool effects
• Dr Tim Kitchen was a great presenter! Straight forward, engaging and enthusiastic.
• Fantastic work! please do more workshops in Auckland!
• I enjoyed just immersing myself in the Adobe products – as I have always felt a little alienated from them.
• A highlight was the welcome & Tim was a very engaging presenter. Realizing there’s a lot more Adobe software I need to get my head around than I thought!

During my Photoshop workshop, the Principal of Avondale College Brent Lewis popped in to greet everyone.

Thank you to Paul McClean (Director of Innovation- Avondale College) and Brent Lewis (Principal – Avondale College) for their support and encouragement with this event. We are looking forward to many more similar events in the future.

On Wednesday 13th June, Adobe Solution Consultant Jane Chen and I spent the morning at the amazing Avondale College in Auckland, New Zealand.

Avondale College is a large public co-educational secondary school with close to 3000 students. About fifty Year 11 & 12 students, who are part of the school’s Innovation Program led by Mr Paul McClean (above centre), worked with Jane and myself on a mini Adobe Have a Voice project.

The aim of the project was to have the students work with a small group to build a 2 min video promoting a concept/idea/issue that is important to them and enhance their 21st century communication and creative problem solving skills.

None of the students had experienced the Adobe Spark tools before but most of them were familiar with a range of other Adobe apps. So, with a few instructions the students were off and running. I was so impressed with the seamless way they cooperated together, creatively solved problems and built their digital stories with a mix of teh following Adobe apps:

• Spark Video
• Spark Post
• Premiere Pro
• Photoshop
• Illustrator

Avondale College prides itself on offering a student focused curriculum involving students achieving a wide range of industry certifications (including Adobe Certificated Associate qualifications).

Avondale Principle Brent Lewis says the Innovation Program and ICT courses at his school are leading New Zealand in information technology education, with students gaining real world project experience as well as industry certifications. He says the success of these programs can be seen by our students’ astonishing results in national and international competitions.

Here examples of some of the videos that were made by the students …

Jane and I enjoyed working with these students and were very impressed with what they were able to achieve in such a short space of time. Most importantly, it was great to see these student display strong skills in cooperation, creative problem solving and creativity.

Stay tuned for a video about this day coming soon to CreateEdu TV.

It’s is nice to be featured in the 2018 The Big Day In highlight video.

Check the following Big Day In events directly involving Adobe in 2018 …

Wagga Wagga

Sydney

Melbourne

Newcastle

Brisbane

Click here to see other Big Day In events held in 2018

A stunning traditional Maori welcome commenced a professional learning hosted by Auckland University of Technology on Tuesday 12th June, 2018.

Just under 100 teachers registered for this event from 17 different (K12 & Higher Ed) schools around Auckland, New Zealand; mostly from Auckland University of Technology and the University of Auckland.

Following the introductions and Adobe Quiz we broke into a range of workshop options

Adobe Solution Consultant, Jane Chen ran a session on Adobe’s mobile apps. Click here to see more information on the wide range of free Adobe apps available on iOS & Android.

Hohepa Spooner, AUT lecturer and his team ran a workshop/presentation about the way AUT are working with Adobe Experience Manager and InDesign to build a series of culturally significant apps for AUT and the wider NZ community.

Donna Golightly, is an Auckland based teacher and local Adobe Spark user. She is an Apple Teacher, Google Certified Educator and a Microsoft Innovative Educator – soon to hopefuylly be an Adobe Campus Leader. Donna ran a wonderful Adobe Spark workshop.

I ran a workshop on Adobe Photoshop.

During our wrap up session we shared a number of resources including the amazing Adobe Make It Now channel on YouTube.

The resources I shared for this event can all be found on the Adobe Education Exchange via – http://bit.ly/adobe13June18

Special thank you to Auckland University of Technology for hosting this event, we are looking forward to with you again in the future.

Over 500 Queensland secondary students visited the University of Queensland on 7th June for the final Big Day In event for 2018.

Senator the Hon James McGrath, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, opened the event with a clear message about how important it is for for young people to develop skills in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics.

The opening keynote session was from Steve Baxter, Queensland’s Chief Entrepreneur, very well known as one of the ‘Sharks’ of the Channel 10 show Shark Tank Australia. Steve is the founder of the River City Labs, an incubator for start up companies focusing on mobile, Internet, telecoms, and the technology field.

Steve encouraged the students to start early on their entrepreneurial endeavours. He said, the more experience you can get in turning your passions into a job as a young person the better. He encouraged the students not to be scared to take risks with their ideas, especially while they are young and have less financial commitments.

Rob the Robot and I had the pleasure to share with the students some of the research around what skills are required to thrive in the future workplace.

I asked the students to identify if they currently have passions for coding, design or video production. I encouraged them to start turning those passions into a job now while they are at school by asking their parents/relatives if they need help with a website, a mobile app or a video for their businesses. I challenged them to not wait till they have finished school or university to develop these skills.

We looked at the future workplace and the threat of automation/computerisation taking over many of today’s jobs and how to best prepare for that future. I shared with them some of the findings from the recent Innovation Science Australia study that recommended that today’s students should be developing interpersonal skills as well as skills in entrepreneurialism and creative problem. These are skills that computers don’t have (yet) so they are skills that will be required most in the future workplace.

It has been a real pleasure and a privilege to be invited to present at the Big Day In events around Australia this year. I would like to thank John Ridge and Kerrie Bisaro from the Australian Computer Society Foundation for all the work they do to make sure, these events are successful.

I’m looking forward to being involved in some of the Junior Big Day In events later this year and hopefully continuing Adobe’s support in the future.