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.