This week in Singapore, I was invited to work with a very special place called Northlight School, a specialised institution designed to cater to students who face academic challenges in the mainstream education system.

Established in 2006, NorthLight School provides a nurturing and supportive environment for students who do not perform well in the Singapore Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) and are unable to progress to secondary school.

The school places a strong emphasis on vocational training, offering courses in areas such as hospitality, retail, facility services, and mechanical servicing. It has strong partnerships with a range of industries who employ their graduates because of the great training provided. I was given a tour of the purpose built classrooms that help provide the students with the best opportunity to develop practical skills, experience and future employment.

The sessions I ran for the students over two mornings introduced them to Adobe Express as a tool to help them develop video literacy skills as well as a tool to help them build a portfolio and resume skills for future employment. I found that most of the students picked up the application with ease and enjoyed what it could help them create. I was told by the teachers that they generally had a low attention span but we were all surprised at how engaged they were during each of the two hours sessions that I ran.

It goes to show that when you set high expectations as a teacher, often students will come to the party if they are given the opportunity and the resources.

NorthLight School serves as a crucial bridge for students who struggle academically, offering them a chance to succeed through a tailored educational experience that focuses on practical skills, character development, and holistic support.

Find out more about Adobe Express for education here.

Join us online or in-person at the 2024 Adobe Educators Conference events on Sept 30 and Oct 10.

The Adobe Singapore office was the venue for a series of engagements with students from a number of schools from the 20th – 22nd August, 2024. The focus of these sessions was on encouraging the students to brand themselves in creatives ways with the help of Adobe Express to help prepare them for future resume and portfolio building.

This was a unique opportunity for the students to interact with a number of Adobe staff and get an experience of what it can be like working for a large multi-national company like Adobe.

Just about all the students were new to Adobe Express. Some had experience with a number of other Adobe applications but many were entire new to what Adobe can offer them.

In total about 100 students from 5 different schools took part in this opportunity from Adobe.

I would like to thank Saravanan Vaithilingam from the Singapore Ministry of Education as well as Titu Minhas and Sue Ho from the Adobe Singapore for helping to make these sessions possible.

Click here to out more about Adobe Express in Education.

Get involved in the free online & in-person 2024 Adobe Educators’ Conference events on Sept 30 & Oct 10.

On Monday 19th August it was my pleasure to be invited to Victoria School, one of the oldest and most well respected boys school in Singapore.

Some of the boys new a lot about Adobe Creative Cloud applications and were using a number of them as part of their school work and leisure. Many of them didn’t realise they had access to Adobe applications and this session opened their eyes to what is possible.

They were all new to Adobe Character Animator and were pleasantly surprised at potential of creating quick video animation in real-time.

They were also new to Adobe Express and didn’t realise that they has access to such a useful and accessible tool to make graphics, videos, animation, web pages and much more.

I would like to thank Careers teacher Kho Yee Lin who helped to manage this engagement. I met Kho in April 2024 when I spoke at a Singapore Ministry of Educator Careers event and was very pleased to be able to spend some quality time at her school.

Singapore was just waking up as I was driven to the school.

Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School is one of the highest achieving schools in Victoria. The school’s ICT Captains Amna & Grace invited me to keynote their 2024 ICT Conference on Friday 16th August which was organised by a committee of students from Years 9 to 12.

The event commenced with an expo featuring displays from The University of Melbourne, RMIT and Monash. Then the students listened to my keynote which included a number of interactive activities involving a range of Adobe applications.

The Victorian government provide the Adobe Creative Cloud to all of their secondary schools.

I was invited to run a series of workshops at the Ivanhoe Grammar staff Professional Learning Day on August 9 titled “Transforming Learning: How to flourish in a digital world”.

The focus of my most of my workshops was introducing the teachers to Adobe Express and sharing how and why it is such an amazing creativity and productivity tool for any subject and year level.

Jacinta Patterson (Head of Pedagogy ‑ The Arts) also invited me to run a special ‘What’s new at Adobe’ session with the Arts teachers.

My resources can be found here.

Special thank you to Brayden Stone (Director of Ivanhoe Institute), Steve Brophy (Director of Digital Transformation) and Jacinta Patterson for inviting me to be involved.

About 10,000 registered for EduTECH AU 2024 in Melbourne which was held on 13th & 14th August. Sal Khan (CEO & founder of the Khan Academy) was the main keynote presenter which was a highlight for many.

A highlight for me personally was being invited as one of a number of authors to sell and sign my new book.

Here are some other highlights from day 1

On Friday 2nd August I was invited to present an Adobe Express workshop at the History Teachers Association of Victoria Conference to about 25 history teachers from a range of schools around Victoria and some who had visited from interstate.

All but one were new to Adobe Express as a creativity and productivity tool, so it was a wonderful opportunity to share the value of Express to new users.

I was very impressed with the ideas they came up with once they saw the power of Express and how it can be use to help teach History such as …

• Creating a short video story to share a historical account.
• Using an animated character to present an assessment.
• Creating infographics presenting biographical information about historical figures.
• Creating posters sharing their thoughts on race, injustice, and law.
• Creating a travel video describing a historical period they would like to travel to.
• Bringing research about a historical figure to life by creating an animated presentation.

Key resources I shared in this workshop are available via https://adobe.ly/2Aug24