On the afternoon/evening of Tuesday 26th March, a group of educators from the Brisbane area came together for the first Queensland based Inject Creativity into the Curriculum with Adobe roadshow event for 2019.

It was great to have the support of Adobe expert Richard Turner-Jones who ran one of the workshop options.

Some of the feedback from this event included:

Highlights included:

On Tuesday March 26, It was delightful to be back at Forest Lake State High School in Brisbane to run an Adobe Day with groups of Year 8 and 9 students who are part of a special advanced learning Group called Lighthouse.

The focus of these sessions was advancing the students skills image manipulation skills with Adobe Photoshop.

On Friday March 22, Macquarie University in Sydney hosted a STEAM workshop focusing on the use of the Adobe Spark applications for their teaching staff.

STEAM - bringing the Arts into the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Digital posters, videos and web pages were created by these educators. For a number of them, it was the first time they had delved into the world of digital production.

Special thank you to Dr Bronwen Wade from Macquarie who helped me put this event together. It was great to see a range of faculties represented at this event.

About 900 students took part in day 2 of the Big Day In at UTS on March 21.

One of the highlights was the welcome address by Zali Steggall . Zali is a former Olympic skier, lawyer and now independent candidate for the federal NSW seat of Warringah, which is currently being held by Tony Abbott.

Zali shared her inspiring story of determination and resilience. It was a wonderful start to this careers event and gave the students a clear understanding of what is possible with the right to motivation.

I gave the second keynote for this event. It was the first time that I have been asked to speak at both of the Sydney Big Day In events.

Here are some of the companies and organisations who helped support the Big Day In events in Sydney this year.

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About 850 NSW secondary students, and a number of higher education students, attended day one of the Sydney Big Day In at University Technology Sydney (UTS) on Wednesday March 20.

The event was opened by Prof. Attila Brungs, Vice Chancellor & President, UTS.

Then the students heard from Anntonette (Anny) Dailey, Executive Director, Operations & Communications at the new Australian Space Agency.

She said that one of her KPIs is to create 20,000 future jobs in Australia’s new space industry. That was very exciting for the students to hear.

Then it was my turn to present my new Big Day In presentation for 2019, Skills to Thrive in the Future.

It really is a privilege to share some of the research around  what skills are considered the most important to thrive in the future and challenge the students and teachers present to focus on those skills due assessment tasks at school and when ever possible.

Other presenters for this event included:

• Richard White, CEO, WiseTech Global Ltd
• Matthew Rockell, STEM & Scholarships Manager, Group Technology, Westpac
• Dan Bowen, Microsoft
• Matt Deshon & Genevieve Ash, TechnologyOne
• Andy Kempson – Digital Transformation Agency, Australian Government
• Alex Giangrasso, founder of Lace Space, Downunder Box & Advisori
• Cesar Saez, Animal Logic
• Corp. Alan Rowell, Defence Force Recruiting
• Steve Doyle, Veeam

In between speakers, the students visited a range of industry reps at their stands to ask them questions.

 At the Adobe stand, the students had the opportunity to play with Character animator and chat with Adobe staff.

Special thank you to the Australian Computer Society Foundation for all the work they do to put together this and all the other Big Day In events throughout the year around Australia.

About 20 NSW teachers registered for the (NESA accredited)  Inject Creativity into the Curriculum professional event which was held at the Adobe Sydney Office yesterday

Premiere Rush was the tool that most of the teachers were interested in knowing more about, but we covered a whole lot more.

For many of the teachers, it was their first time working with Adobe Spark, Character Animator, Photoshop, XD and a range of other Adobe apps.

I’d like to thank Adobe Education Leaders Chris Betcher and Brett Kent for their help running breakout workshops during the event.

Also, a special thank you to Rebecca Smith from Northern Beaches Christian School who stepped in at the last minute to run a Photoshop tips & tricks workshop.

This event was one of a range of Inject Creativity into the Curriculum events we are running around Australia. If you are keen  to attend an event near you, use this Spark Page to find our more and register …

https://spark.adobe.com/page/yoIxhofamR56v/

Highlight comments from the feedback …

• The Adobe Rush app
• 3D Photoshop
• Enhancing knowledge of a wide range of Adobe applications.
• I enjoyed learning about Photoshop 3D and a way to implement stem into photography in a more relevant way that my students will enjoy – Re. VR experience through cinematography
• learn so many new things, and new possibilities — a good mix of detail workshop and inspiration of what’s possible. 
• A highlight of the event was creating high-quality videos using Premier Rush and the ease of using such software.
• I’m so privileged to have been given the opportunity to present some exciting activities in Photoshop with the talented educators in the room.
• I’m going to present my Year 7 and Year 8 students with the Rush app to get them started in video editing and prepare for Premier Pro. Thank you!
• I loved learning about so many different tools and apps. I also appreciated being able to ask heaps of questions throughout the time. The small group breakout times were really valuable.

The 2019 Big Day In season commenced last Wednesday at Charles Sturt University in the rural city of Wagga Wagga in the south of NSW.

Adobe has been supporting the Big Day In for a number of years and I have the honour of keynoting most of the 12 events around Australia each year.

The theme of my presentations this year is preparing students with the skills to thrive in the future. I challenge the students to look at the above list of skills that have been highlighted by the work of Marc Prensky and establish what they are good at and what they need to work on.

I challenge the teachers attending to consider these skills when setting assessment and learning tasks to help their students prepare for an unknown future.

We look at the top 5 skills to thrive in the future according to the World Economic Forum and note the significance of enhancing creativity skills.

It’s always nice to chat with the students during the breaks at the Adobe stand and show them how Adobe tools can help them enhance their digital creativity skills as well as help brand them to be noticed in the competitive job & course market.