The Wagga Wagga campus of Charles Sturt University was the location for about 250 NSW Department of Education teachers from southern NSW who took part in the first InteractED event for 2019.

Apple, Google, Microsoft and (of course) Adobe were all represented at this event running a mix of workshops and keynote presentations. It is not often that these vendors are all together in one place, and especially rare for us all to be together outside a major city. So this was a great opportunity for these riverina educators to hear about the latest digital initiatives from the world’s best digital creativity companies.

The CIO of the NSW Department of Education, Stephen Loquet welcomed everyone and shared some of the amazing projects that are happening to help NSW teachers and students enhance their digital capabilities.

My keynote session was titled Creativity is not an option, it’s an absolute necessity and part of it involved looking at the new research coming out of the World Economic Forum and LinkedIN

This highlights how important is it to be encouraging creativity in our classrooms to best prepare young people for the future.

All my resources for this event are available via – http://bit.ly/adobe-Wagga19

On Tuesday April 2, about 150 Year 4 to 9 students from four different independent schools in Sydney took part in the first ever Adobe 1 Minute Video Challenge.

The aim of this all-day challenge is to have the students works in teams to create a 1- minute video in a day with the use of Adobe software such as Spark Video, Premiere Rush, Premiere Pro, Premiere Elements, Premiere Clip, After Effects and/or Photoshop.

This event was very kindly hosted by The Kings School in Parramatta and it involved students from the following schools:

• The Kings School (a number of Year 4 teams and some Year 8 teams)
• Shore School (Year 9s)
• Knox Grammar School (Year 6 team & Year 8 team)
• St. Catherine’s Waverley (Year 5 team & a Year 6 team)

The day began with everyone together hearing from Michael Stoddart (Director, Digital Media Enterprise at Adobe) who outlined the growing importance of learning video literacy skills.

Then I went through a range of tips & tricks to help the students make the best possible video stories.

After explaining what was expected of the students, we relieved the secret ingredients that needed to be features in each story.

Every film needed to be  based on the theme of creativity. The phrase Thank goodness we have Photoshop needed to be featured and a drink bottle needed to be included in about 30% of the scenes.

When the students has this information, they went into their Pre-Production (planning phase).

After careful planning and scripting, they went into production mode and captured all the footage, still images, audio files and other resources they needed to tell their story.

Then it was editing time. Some chose to use Spark Video, some Premiere Rush and some even used Premiere Pro, After Effects and Photoshop.

The end products were amazing, especially considering may of the teams had never made a video before. Congratulations to the winning teams from St Catherine’s, Knox Grammar and The Kings School. But most importantly, congratulations to all involved  for displayed great teamwork, collaboration, problem solving, leadership and creativity throughout the day.

Stay tuned for a video about this event coming soon to CreateEdu TV.

On Friday March 29, I had the privilege of introducing the world of Adobe in Education when I keynoted the topic Creativity in Education to the Japanese Language Teachers Association of Victoria conference at the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre.

This was the main professional learning event for about 400 teachers of Japanese in Victoria and this year, a large number of educators from other states also attended.

I found it interesting that when I asked how many had heard of Adobe Spark, less than a handful put up their hands. It confirmed to me that most the events where I speak or run workshops involve either fans of Adobe or teachers who are already aware of what Adobe has to offer. So, it was a pleasure to introduce the world of Adobe apps to a whole new set of educators.

During the keynote, I asked for a volunteer to help animate a digital puppet in Adobe Character Animator.

I also asked a volunteer to work with Adobe Sketch, Spark Post and Spark Video to make a short video that helps teach number scripting and speaking in Japanese.

I talked about some of the technological advances that have happened during my 98 year old Grandmother’s life. Such as …

• Global literacy – 25% to >80%
• For the first time, the majority of the world’s population will not be impoverished
• Average human lifespan increased 2x
• Average per capita income increased 3x
• Child mortality decreased 10x
• Cost of food decreased 10x
• Cost of electricity decreased 20x
• Cost of transport decreased 100x
• Cost of communication decreased 1000x

And I posed the following question …

Will future technologies replace the need to learn a foreign language?

Then I helped answered the question with the idea that teaching a foreign language has a number of advantages for students such as ..

• Better job prospects
• Brain health
• Travel opportunities
• Improves first language
• Improves understanding of the world

I’d like to thank Nathan Lane, the President of JLTAV for inviting me to speak.

All the slides I shared during this keynote are available via – http://bit.ly/adobe-JLTAV

Venue 114 on the Sunshine Coast was the venue for this year first Big day In event in Queensland for 2019. It was held on Wed March 27 and involved about 350 students.

Following an inspiring welcome to country by Lyndon Davis (Kabi Kabi Traditional Owner), the students listened to a range of speakers from various IT related industry areas.

One of the highlights was listening to Greg Booker from RACQ who provided a great summary of the influence of technology in the past 100 years and its expected dramatic exponential growth in the future.

It was my pleasure to share some of the research into skills required to thrive in the future.

At the Adobe stand I enjoyed sharing the value of products such as Adobe Character Animator to help enhance digital creativity skills.

It was lovely to have a group of enthusiastic Year 6 students from a nearby primary school join the event.

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.