On Thursday 10th September Adobe Education Leader Eden Carey from Perth and I ran an event for schools who used iPads & iPhones called All things iOS and Adobe.

This event involved about 60 members of the Apple Distinguished Educators network, Apple Professional Learning Specialists, Adobe Education Leaders and Adobe Creative Educators who teach with iOS devices.

The aim was to share the value of the main Adobe iOS applications being used by teachers to enhance creativity and digital literacy in classrooms around the globe.

Click here to access the recording.

Key apps demonstrated during this event included:

• Spark Video
• Photoshop Camera
• Aero
• Fresco
• Spark Post
• Rush

Last Friday 4th September, about 30 students representing Year 8 to Year 12 at St Leo’s Catholic College took part in an Adobe 1-Minute Video Challenge.

This challenge is all about working with a team of students and teachers to create a 1 minute video in a day with the use of Adobe software (such as Premiere Pro, Premiere Rush, After Effects, Character Animator, Aero & Photoshop) to help promote the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2015, the United Nations established 17 interconnected Sustainable Development Goals that need to be achieved by 2030 achieve a better future for our globe. Each goal addresses the following global challenges:

• Poverty
• Inequality
• Climate change
• Environmental degradation
• Peace and
• Justice

The St Leo’s students formed 5 groups and after I went over the criteria and some basic film making techniques, they created five x 1 minute films to help raise awareness of these goals.

Here is a video made by St Leo’s teacher Louie Tiglao about the students in action …

The last hour of the day involved exporting, sharing and judging the films. The judging involved a mix of peer judging and me judging. Here are the winning films …

1st Place

2nd Place

3rd Place

Here is the YouTube link to yesterday’s Inject Creativity Live Chat-show.

Click here to access the Deeper-dive event recording

• Chapter 1 – Introductions
• Chapter 2 – Mark Woszczalski (After Effects basics)
• Chapter 3 – APAC Summit promo
• Chapter 4 – Clara Galan (Adobe Edu Community Programs)
• Chapter 5 – Resources

It was a pleasure to be the opening keynote at the virtual Big Day In Wangaratta event yesterday with one of my pet topics – Turn Your Passion into a Job

This special edition Inject Creativity Live is a tribute to Sir Ken Robinson who sadly passed away on 21st August.

Click here the Deeper-dive event that was recorded after the above chat-show session.

• Chapter 1 – Introduction
• Chapter 2 – Interview with Sir Ken
• Chapter 3 – Dan Haesler
• Chapter 4 – Peter Hutton
• Chapter 5 – Dr Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen & Luke Kerr
• Chapter 6 – Joel Aarons & Juliette Bentley

It was a pleasure to put this tribute together to honour such a legend in the world of education and creativity.

Obituaries

• The Guardian
• The Washington Post

I was very saddened to hear about the passing of Sir Ken Robinson this morning after his short battle with cancer.

I had the great pleasure of meeting him on three occasions when he visited Australia for various education events and count him has a major influence in my professional life.

After seeing his 2006 TED Talk Do schools kill creativity I was hooked and have read all of his books and refer to him and his messaging often when I am presenting to teachers.

Sir Ken championed the fight to enhance creativity in education and in all aspects of life. His passion, his words and his influence will live on in all of us who are striving to improve the education system.

I was very much looking forward to working with him later this year where we had booked him to present (online) at Adobe Max.

His memory and his message will live on.

Starting on Friday 14th August and finishing a week later, over 365 students from over 30 universities throughout Australia and New Zealand competed for a special virtual Adobe Creative Jam.

An Adobe Creative Jam event is where students, lecturers, and industry professionals come together to solve real-world issues by designing experiences that bring ideas to life. The virtual Creative Jam LIVE is an online version where thought leaders share a behind-the-scene peek into their processes and projects; meanwhile, teams compete in a tournament that puts their creative skills to the test using Adobe Creative Cloud.

In this case, the iconic Australian company Rip Curl was the industry leader and they provided the following brief – Design a third-party mobile app that encourages local coastal communities to take action and help preserve their own coastal environment.

During the first session, the students were inspired by Mark Flanagan from Rip Curl and then took part in an Adobe XD bootcamp session by Adobe’s own Jason Grant.

The 365 students formed 162 teams and used Adobe XD to create their designs in preparation for the judging during the second session.

202 students from 22 universities completed the challenge and submitted 85 entries.

The judges (Mark Flanagan and Lachlan McNish from Rip Curl as well as Hilary Nemer from Adobe) narrowed down the entries to following top ten entries

First place – Swinburne University

Team: We Met On Zoom App: Lighthouse

Second place – Monash University

Team: Gist App: Waves

Third place – RMIT

Team: Hareharu App: Greenify

Fourth place – Griffith University

Team: Kakooo App: Local Coastal

Fifth place – The University of Sydney

Team: Team Iggly App: Conservation by the Coast

Other finalists …

Griffith University

Team:Cuddly – Their App

Swinburne University
Team: Ham Kat App: Stingray Bay

RMIT
Team: JTAC App: WildPost

Swinburne
Team: Team RAE.J App: Beach Please

UNSW
Team: Turtle Rollers App: WaveMakers

Over 3000 teenagers (mainly girls) from Vietnam applied for about 750 places at the 2020 Summer Camp run by the  Pacific Links Foundation  called Camp Connect 2020 where I had the pleasure of running a set of six Adobe Spark workshops.

The theme of the camp was Building a Brighter Tomorrow and the mission of the Pacific Links Foundation is to support the sustainable development of Vietnamese communities & the enrichment of their cultural heritage

Over the past 15 years, this Foundation has produced some outstanding results.

I spent much of the weekend (on Zoom) working with about 120 Vietnamese teenagers who are risk of being trafficked. My repeated workshop was based on teaching them Spark Post & Spark Video to help develop some digital skills in the hope that they will stay at school and find employment.

The objective of this camp are to:

■ To build a solid foundation for a bright future
■ To promote personal development by strengthening self-awareness
■ To introduce new paths and directions for the future

Students who did not have access to devices or the Internet were looked after by a range of companies and the camp was run by over 100 volunteers providing a total of 270 workshops via Zoom run by 130 presenters from around the globe.

It was a delight to be involved and provide some new digital skills and opportunities to these wonderful young people.

I enjoyed sharing some of my past Vietnam experiences when I took a group of students on a 2009 World Challenge trip to paint a school for the blind in Hanoi. This became the topic of my Spark Post while the students were encouraged to create posters based on their passions.