On Tuesday 18th February 2025, over 20 teachers from schools around Sydney, TAFE NSW and ACU visited the Adobe Sydney office to work through the Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) Level 1 & 2 courses.

This was a unique opportunity to complete both micro-credentials in the one afternoon session and join the international ACE community. Being a member of the ACE program, involves receiving curated professional development materials, information about virtual and in-person events, and the opportunity to connect with like-minded educators from around the world.

Click here to find out more about the ACE program.

Feedback highlights from the teachers involved:

• Learning new animation skills in Express. Access to great resources within the courses too!
• Expanding my knowledge of features within Adobe Express and applying these in practical exercises.
• The course was designed to support education
• Well run lesson with very achievable outcomes
• Being able to learn more about the capability of Adobe Express.
• Unpacking the versatility of Adobe Express
• The hands on nature of the session
• Brevity and clarity of what was being taught.

Other feedback:

• Very engaging and well paced! Absolutely perfectly presented!
• Super creative way to engage my students
• Learned a lot in a short time
• Had a fun afternoon of learning
• This is an engaging course that all Technology teachers should attend.
• Fun, engaging and so easy to use

I would like to thank my colleague Al Briggs and Adobe Creative Educator – Leader Martin Gray from Singleton High for helping me run this session.

More opportunities to complete ACE Level 1 & 2 can be found here.

On Thursday 13th February, Macgregor State School in Brisbane hosted an Adobe Day for all 224 of their Year 5 & 6 students.

The challenge that each student had was to access Adobe Express for the first time and use it as tool to create an animation about how to make the world a better place to live.

Following some explicit teaching about the tool, the students produced some great results and were keen to explore more features within Adobe Express. The teachers were very excited about the potential of Adobe Express to help engage the students and foster digital literacy and creativity skills within a range of curriculum areas and activities.

After school, over 50 of the teaching staff at Macgregor took part in a professional learning session that involved doing the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 micro-credential course.

I would like to thank Deputy Principal Gary Davey for organising this Adobe Day at his school and Adobe Creative Educator-Leader Richard Turner-Jones for helping me and many of the students and teachers throughout the day.

Click here to find out more about Adobe Days.

On Wednesday the 12th February 2024, I had the pleasure of working with about 130 Year 7 to 10 students from Bellbird Park State Secondary College near Brisbane.

Late in 2024, the Queensland Education Department allowed Adobe Express to be a part of the single-sign-on system for all of their students and teachers. I had the pleasure of introducing this wonderful application and watching the students work together to make a set of amazing short video animations.

After school, about 25 Bellbird Park teachers worked though the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 micro-credential course with me. It was great to see the excitement in the eyes of the teachers as they discovered the power of Adobe Express to engage students in a wide range of curriculum areas.

I would like to thank STEAM Coordinator Zainab Ali for organising this fabulous day.

On the afternoon of Monday 10th February, I had the pleasure of working with a group of talented Year 5 & 6 students at Grand Avenue State School near Brisbane.

These students use iPads as their main digital device so this was a great opportunity to test the capacities of mobile version of Adobe Express.

The animated characters were very popular and well used by the students to create short animated stories on their iPads.

I would like to thank Student Engagement Coach Reece Neyland for organising this opportunity for his students as well as the after school professional learning session that was organised for teachers in the region.

About 250 people attended Mark Christie’s funeral at the Thorak Cemetery near Darwin on Friday 31st January with many more watching live online.

Click here to see the live stream recording via Facebook.

Everyone was encourage to wear a colourful Hawaiian style shirt in honour of what Mark use to wear most days.

Mark’s son Joe wore one of Mark’s shirts and shared many wonderful memories of his Dad. They had such a wonderful bond. It was very clear that they were so proud of each other.

Mark’s wife Hellen was so brave as she also share her grief with us and described how proud she was of Mark as all that he achieved.

Mark’s three brothers (Sean, Grant & Lance) were represented so eloquently by Sean. He shared a number of stories about their life growing up in Darwin together. Each brother dispalyed a number of Mark’s mannerisms and his sense of humour, it was a pleasure to meet them.

Mark’s niece Cecilia Tsan flew in from Korea to help represent Hellen’s side of the family and did such a great job sharing her love for Mark and how she and many of the cousins saw Mark as a father figure.

It was my great pleasure to be asked by Mark’s family to represent his friends and wider education community who he served so well for many years. There were a number of educators and education administrators at the service including the current and past NT Ministers of Education, the CIO of the NT Department of Education and even the past Chief Minister of the Norther Territory Eva Lawler who also spoke and shared some very amusing stories about Mark and his influence.

I was able to share the reflections of a number of educators who knew and loved Mark from around Australia, including the following wonderful poem about Mark written by fellow Adobe Creative Educator Julliette Bentley.

Here is a link to the transcript of my speech.

Mark’s good friend, and fellow member of the Adobe Creative Educator community, Nalin Naidoo flew in from Brisbane to join me in supporting the Christie family. It was a great honour for both of us to be there at this difficult time.

RIP Mark Chistie

Thanks to the HP Reinvent the Classroom project lead by Brett Salakas, Berry Spring Primary School in the Norther Territory was the first school in Australia (and one of the first globally) to put all their teachers through both levels of the Adobe Creative Educator community courses.

During my trip to Darwin in January, they invited me to work with all of their Year 5 & 6 students and teachers where we went through a short design thinking challenge using Adobe Express.

I would like to thank Berry Springs Primary principal Mrs Carlie Mamo and her team for the kind invitation at very short notice.

Video tutorials that cover much of what we covered with the students are available via here.

Have a look at the latest edition of our Australasian newsletter.

It was back in October 2015 when I first visited Nakara Primary School in Darwin. Lots of changes have happened since then, but the spirit for digital creativity is still strong.

This trip to the far north of Australia was at very short notice, prompted by the sudden death and funeral of well-known NT education consultant Mark Christie. When Taniel Mckellar (ICT Coordinator) heard that I was flying up, she grabbed the opportunity for me to work with a group of Year 5 & 6 students, even through it was the second day of their academic school year.

Mark Christie had been working with the school in 2024 so a number of the students had created posters and Gen AI images with Adobe Express. In this session, I introduced them to the video, animation & collaboration features and (in small groups), the students created short animations focused on tips to make the world a better place to live.

Video tutorials based on what I taught can be found here.

Click here to see my 2015 post about my first visit to Nakara.