On Thursday 2nd May, I had the pleasure of being the opening keynote presenter at the Newcastle Big Day In event at the University of Newscastle. About 400 secondary students from a range of government, catholic and independent schools around the Hunter Valley and wider regional NSW joined us for a day of information about a range of potential careers with a focus on IT.

My presentation was based on the skills required to thrive in the future. Other presenters included the wonderful Andrew Balzer from Microsoft as well as representatives from Defence Force Recruiting, WiseTech Global, Westpac, The Australian Signals Directorate and Amazon.

On Wednesday, May 1st, I facilitated the Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) Level 1 course at St Mary’s Catholic College, welcoming 35 dedicated Catholic school teachers from the Newcastle region in NSW.

ACE Level 1 is focused on looking at the importance of fostering creativity in all areas of education. It is also the gateway to the Adobe Creative Educator program which is community program that provides curated professional development materials, information about virtual and in-person events, and the opportunity to connect with like-minded educators from around the world.

The ACE Level 1 program, can be done on-demand at any time via the Adobe Education Exchange but it usually takes about 3 hours to complete. I offer a special localised version in-person and online that can be completed in 90 minutes. To register interest in a coming session, click here.

I was invited to work with all the Year 8 & 9 students at St Mary’s Catholic College in Gateshead (near Newcastle, NSW) on Wed 1st May, 2024.

We focused on safe and ethical Gen AI image creation with Adobe Express and the students learned about the importance of good prompting, how to utilise the resources of Adobe Stock within Adobe Express and why encouraging creativity is so important.

I would like thank Shane Abell for organising this day at his school.

Also a special thank you to for the support of Hayley & Mark – Digital Innovation and learning Education Officers from the from the Maitland/Newcastle Catholic Education Office NSW.