Planning the school of the future

Adobe was thrilled to be asked to be involved in The Game Changer Challenge, an initiative from the NSW Department of Education for the 2018 Education Week.

Inspired by the need to take learning from the classroom into the real world, the Game Changer Challenge involved connecting primary & secondary schools from across NSW with leading education technology and design thinking professionals to solve the big question – how can tomorrow’s schools help create the future?

100 schools entered the challenge and the 16 finalist were selected to take part in three days of activities and creativity at the brand-new NSW DoE Headquarters in Parramatta.

Check out the recruitment video …

Day 1

For the first day of the Challenge, teachers went through a bootcamp where they learned about, and gain confidence in using the Design Thinking process as a teaching methodology. This was run by Tricky Jigsaw an Innovation Design Consultancy.

The students had a separate program where they listened to panels of industry experts (which were broadcast live on the NSW DoE Facebook site) and enjoyed a set of workshop activities aimed at equipped them with the skills required carry out the Challenge the following day.

I had the pleasure of being on the second panel along with Janne Ryan founder of TEDx Sydney, Rebecca Smallchua from Thankyou & Ben Cooper Managing Director of Tricky Jigsaw.

The workshop sessions I ran along with Jane Chen & Jerry Wong from Adobe were based on Adobe Spark Video. Brett Kent (Adobe Education Leader) is now working full time with the NSW DoE STEMshare program was also a great help.

Day 2

The second day was focused on applying the Design Thinking process to a real world problem and help the students to answer the main Challenge question – How can tomorrow’s school help create the future?

The students also has the wonderful opportunity to do a physical workout on the rooftop  with Ninja Warrior Jack Wilson.

Most of the afternoon, and even up to 8PM, was spent working in teams to plan a pitch about the school of the future to a panel of education and industry experts. Representatives from the NSW DoE STEM team, Microsoft, Amazon, Lego and of course Adobe were all on hand to help the teams build their pitch ideas.

Day 3

The third day was pitch day. The teams added their final touches to their presentation before presenting them to a panel of education and industry experts who were judging them including the department’s Secretary Mr Mark Scott.

It was great to see a number of Adobe applications being used to help the teams pitch their ideas such as Spark Video, Spark Post, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Character Animator.

The winners

Every team was a winner just by being involved in the event, but the primary school who was judged with the best pitch idea was …

Cudgegong Valley Public School

The winning high school was …

Carenne School (Bathurst)

Click here to find out more

A special congratulations to the the NSW Department of Education, Tricky Jigsaw, Microsoft, TEDx, Amazon, Lego, Adobe and the following schools for such an amazing three days of learning, creativity and fun …

PRIMARY SCHOOLS
Lidcombe Public School
Ingleburn Public School
Oakhill Drive Public School
Cherrybrook Public School
Cudgegong Valley Public School Menindee Central School
Alstonville Public School
Thirroul Public School

HIGH SCHOOLS
Chatswood High School
Lurnea High School
Beverly Hills Girls High School
Armidale High School
Campbelltown Performing Arts High School Gloucester High School
Carenne School
Hurlstone Agricultural High School