On Wednesday 19th April, I had the pleasure of working with all the Year 7s as well as senior Media students at Surf Coast Secondary College (SCSC) in Torquay, Victoria.
Every Year 7 students at SCSC has their own iPad and together we explored the power the Adobe Spark apps.
I was very impressed with what the students were able achieve and, most importantly, with the potential educational ideas the students and teachers came up now that they had been exposed to the apps.
With the senior media students, I ran an intensive video editing session with Premiere Pro. For many it was their first exposure to this professional application but they picked up the basics and I’m looking forward to hearing about what they achieve.
Special thank you to Assistant Principal Erin Weightman for organising this event.
At the hub of the The Geelong Library and Heritage Centre in Victoria, Australia is a dome shaped award winning architectural masterpiece that inspires creativity to all who visit.
Adobe Campus Leader Suzanne Cronin helps lead a range of education technology programs at the library for school groups and other members of the local and wider community. She invited me to run an afternoon of Adobe workshops for a number of the staff.
Suzanne Cronin – Adobe Campus Leader
Suzanne has had a unique background in TV production and education and we are very pleased to have her in our global Adobe Education leadership program.
Some of the Adobe Spark apps and Photoshop are used to help with the communications and education programs and it was a pleasure to provide the technical and education staff with some ideas on how they can further enhance the creative experience for all their visitors.
I was interested to hear that the dome shaped building was the winner of the coveted Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture in 2016.
Special thank you to Suzanne and her manager Gerrad Daniels for making this event happen.
Having digital media and communication skills is not only a requirement in most careers these days, it is also a significant way to stand out from the crowd when applying for a new job, course of study or promotion. Skills in image manipulation, video production, online communication, animation and publication are not only fundamental to most jobs in the digital media industry, they are also considered important 21st century workplace skills in just about all careers, including education.
Many job applicants say they have digital media skills, but that is hard to prove unless they have formal certification that is recognised by industry such as the Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) qualifications.
What is ACA?
ACA is a formal set of industry recognized qualifications that can be completed while doing secondary and post-secondary studies or while working and wanting to have skills formally recognised for promotion or new opportunities.
Worldwide, ACA is managed by Certiport who are also responsible for Microsoft certification. More locally in Australia and South East Asia, Certiport’s partner organization XCERIO are the main point of contact.
The 2016 ACA Study was undertaken late last year by Edelman Intelligence and Adobe with over 1000 current and aspiring digital media employees aged 18-29 (with and without ACA certification) from the US, Mexico and South Korea. Just under half of them (504) were ACA holders and 562 of them did not have an ACA qualification.
Digital media is an exciting, growing sector
According to the study, 72% of the respondents reflected that they are excited about future opportunities within digital media and 74% perceive the digital media field to be more competitive compared to five years ago. However, with growth comes more competition with over half (56%) of respondents expressed concern about their ability to stand out.
Demonstrating proficiency in digital media tools appears to be critical to being able to secure a job in digital media with 62% reporting that not being proficient in digital media tools is a barrier to entering the field.
Early training of digital media skills is important
Two-thirds (67%) wish their high school had offered courses/programs to help them learn how to use digital media tools. Nearly three quarters (71%) of the respondents said that if they had the opportunity to learn digital media skills in a formal education setting, they would be further along in their pursuit of a digital media career.
Standing out from the crowd
Having formal ACA qualifications helps candidates to stand out, be competitive, develop confidence and demonstrate their proficiency in digital media tools. Two-thirds of both ACA holders and non-ACA holders agreed that completing the ACA can help candidates stand out from their competition, and that having ACA improves their overall confidence.
ACA holders are nearly twice as likely as non-ACA holders to feel ahead of the curve compared to their competition with 66% of non-ACA holders agreeing that the ACA would have helped them prove their digital media skills to prospective employers if they had been given the opportunity to complete it as part of their K-12 or post-secondary education.
A relevant & creative résumé
Demonstrating that candidates are keeping up with developments in digital media tools is seen as imperative. A lack of proficiency in digital media tools is the number one perceived barrier to entering the digital media field according to 62% of the participants.
The survey asked what can help a résumé stand out if the applicant lacks previous digital media experience? The top answer (61%) was a demonstrable knowledge of digital design tools. Over half (56%) said a demonstrated ability to work across multiple devices, platforms and programs. Again, over half (53%) said a portfolio that demonstrates digital media capabilities and just under half (49%) said the résumé needed to be visually appealing and 47% said that indicating the completion of 4-year degree in digital media was important.
Adobe, like other major multinational IT companies, receives 100s of résumés per month. One of the Senior Directors told me once that he divided the résumés that he had to deal with into three piles before choosing potential candidates to be short listed for an interview. The first pile were all text and paper based, and generally they were ignored. The second pile featured an image of the candidate with a link to a blog, online portfolio or website. These résumés were looked at an considered for the next stage. The third pile was almost guaranteed an interview because they featured a video of the candidate outlining who they were, what skills they had and why they should get the position. A video based résumé is a great way to stand out from the crowd.
Here is a great example of a video résumé that I often show you senior secondary students to inspire them …
Digital Media as a career
When asked the type of digital media that respondents specialised in or wanted to focus on, 33% said multimedia, 33% said web publication, 19% focused on video production and 13% on print. When asked what the primary purpose of their work is, 36% said it was for social impact, 32% said it was for commercial projects and 27% said it was for fine art.
Nearly three quarters (72%) of respondents are excited about their future opportunities within a digital media career with over half (56%) planning to stay within the digital media industry for their entire career.
More about ACA
If you are interested in finding out more about the Adobe Certified Associate and you live within Australasia go the this site – http://www.xcerio.com/certifications/adobe/
Click here to see the Adobe Education blog about the ACA research.
Click here to access the info-graphics related to the ACA study.
Click here to learn more about how to prepare for an ACA examination.
The 2017 TeachTechPlay Conference (TTP) was held on April 3 & 4 at Ivanhoe Grammar School in Melbourne.
TeachTechPlay is learning community for teachers, led by teachers with an aim at inspiring learning through empowerment and connection. This was the second TTP conference led by Eleni Kyritsis, Steve Brophy and Corey Aylen – all full time teachers in Melbourne doing TTP in their spare time.
Eleni & Steve starting the 2017 TTP Conference
Ewan McIntosh founder & CEO of NoTosh was the opening Keynote presenter. Ewan is the author of How To Come Up With Great Ideas and Actually Make Them Happen. He is a well regarded international keynote presenter and a great choice to start the conference. NoTosh consultants also ran a series of sessions through the two days.
As one of the major sponsors, Adobe was provided with its own dedicated workshop room where Adobe Education Leader Joel Arons, Adobe Campus Leaders Matt Smith, Michelle Dennis, Terry Cantwell and I ran a series of Adobe workshops.
Joel Aarons (AEL) ran a session titled Teaching Media Arts with a range of Adobe Applications with a focus on Adobe Capture and Adobe Sketch
Michelle Dennis (ACL) ran a Photoshop workshop titled ‘The Real Me’: Using airbrushing in Adobe Photoshop to teach about body image.
Matt Smith (ACL) and Terry Cantwell ran a series of video editing workshop/presentations on Adobe Premiere Pro titled Taking video production to the next level with Adobe Premiere Pro CC.
Matt Smith (ACL)
Terry Cantwell (ACL)
I had the pleasure of doing the following sessions throughout the two days:
Free and easy online production with Adobe (Spark Post & Page)
Free and easy video production with Adobe (Spark Video & Premiere Clip)
Flipping the classrooms with help from Adobe (Adobe Presenter & Spark)
Photoshop Tips & Tricks (Photoshop CC)
It was great to have the support of the Adobe Leaders for this event.
I’d like to congratulate the TTP team Eleni Kyritsis, Corey Aylen & Steve Brophy and their supporters for putting together such a great event with so many enthusiastic educators who took time out of their holidays to network and share with each other.
The Big Day In events are run all over Australia by the Australian Computer Society Foundation with an aim to encourage young people to consider a career in the IT industry.
Hon Victor Dominello MP, NSW Minister for Finance, Services & Property, along with Professor Attila Brugs, Vice Chancellor & President of UTS and Andrew Johnson, CEO of the Australian Computer Society set the scene be welcoming the students and encouraging them to make the most of this opportunity to engage with a wealth of IT industry experience.
Hon Victor Dominello, welcoming the students
John Ridge (Executive Director of the ACS Foundation), Andrew Johnson (CEO of ACS), Hon Victor Dominello MP, Professor Attila Brugs (Vice Chancellor UTS)
Anna Emmerson, Google Engineer, was the first of a series of presenters from a wide range of IT and Media companies, all with similar messages about what skills young people should be developing to prepare themselves for the future.
Anna Emmerson from Google
Another highlighted presenter was Dan Bowen. Dan is Microsoft’s STEM/Minecraft and Imagine Academy Lead. He explored future trends and technologies from the cloud to artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Michael was a hard act to follow, especially at the end of a long day for the students but it was my job to finish the day with a bang and encourage the students to think about the key messages from all the presenters and the many common themes.
Here is my keynote session from this event …
It was a pleasure to share with the students some of Adobe’s recent GenZ research (http://adobeeducate.com/genz/) and to encourage them to develop the skills to brand themselves in creative ways so that they can stand out from the crowd. My key message was for them to see themselves as life long creators.
Between the presentation there was time for the students to meet the presenters and others from a wide range of IT companies.
Special thank you to Jerry Wong & Anna Nakao from Adobe for helping to look after the Adobe stand.
Today I had the pleasure of presenting a two hour digital creativity workshop with teaching staff and pre-service teachers at Monash University’s Faculty of Education. Monash is considered one of the world’s top 20 universities with a national and international reputation for excellence in teaching and research.
Dr Michael Henderson, Associate Professor in Educational Technologies and lecturer Dr Michael Phillips helped to drive this event with an aim to provide the students with a better understanding of Adobe’s amazing creativity and productivity tools, with a focus on online publication.
Dr Michael Henderson, Dr Michael Phillips, Me, Dr Amber McLeod & Roland Gesthuizen
We started with one of my Adobe quizzes to give everyone a better idea about the company and what we provide. This involved a brief look at new features within Adobe Photoshop and introduction to Character Animator and a overview of the reach of Premiere Pro within world of film and TV.
Then we had a play with Adobe Spark Post and everyone built posters about why they want to become educators. I also demonstrated how Spark Post can link nicely with Adobe Photoshop Sketch to layer extra images within the Spark posters.
We then played with Spark Video and learned how to make a Spark Page that embedded a Spark Video and Post.
One of the highlights was showing the value of Adobe Premiere Clip as a very simple and accessible video production and editing tool.
It was lovely to catch up with my friend (and well known Australian educator) Roland Gesthuizen who began teaching at Monash at the start of this year after a great career as a pioneering Science & IT teacher in Victoria since the early 1990s.
A particular personal thrill for me was catching up with my nephew Trent Adams who has recently started at Monash as a student teacher.
It’s always a privilege to encourage the next generation of educators. As I said to them all at the end of today’s session, being a teacher is one of the most important jobs there is.
On Wednesday 15th March, I met with two very passionate and impressive men who have put their talents together to come up with a school for students passionate about AFL called The Academy.
Current AFL Player Alex Rance from the Richmond Football club and his business partner and close friend Luke Surace have teamed up with a few others to make The Academy a reality.
The aim of the school is to provide students with opportunities in sport outside of the traditional pathways. Graduating students from The Academy earn a Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL Certificate) as well as a rich source of life skills to equip them with for a a future with or without an AFL career.
Alex and Luke shared with me some of the frustrations they have had and seen with the general education system and the strong focus on the ATAR (The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank ) and other standardised testing and puts so much unnecessary pressure on so many young people. They set up The Academy as an alternative, with a particular focus for students with a passion for AFL football.
All the students at The Academy have iPads and the general workflow, according to Alex & Luke, is as paperless as possible. Luke is from a learning design background and Alex has had experience developing apps so they are familiar with what Adobe has to offer. It was my pleasure to show them how the Adobe Spark Apps are making a difference in classrooms around the world and how other Adobe iPad touch apps such as Premiere Clip can be used to help student develop their video literacy and general communication skills.
I’m looking forward to keeping in touch with Alex & Luke and supporting them in this exciting venture into the world of education & training.
Click here for a great article by Emma Quayle from The Age about The Academy
On Tuesday 14th March, I had the pleasure of spending most of the day with all the Year 7 students at Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School in Melbourne with an aim to get them familiar with the Adobe Spark products on their iPads.
The girls began each session learning how to make quick digital posters with Spark Post. Then they mastered Spark Video to make short video stories and with the remaining part of each lesson, they were shown how to put a Spark Post & Video into a Spark Page.
It was a joy to see the way the girls engaged with the software and very quickly built creative and entertaining posters and stories. The concept behind the Adobe Spark tools is to get content out there quickly and not be too worried about design concerns. Unlike some of Adobe’s professional tools, these tools are easy to master and a great way to be introduced to the world of digital creativity with Adobe.
The 2017 ICTENSW Conference began on Friday 10th March with events at Microsoft, Google and Adobe and it was my pleasure to run the Day@Adobe.
About 40 NSW educators spent the day at Adobe’s Sydney office work-shopping a range of Adobe solutions and how they could be used to enhance creativity in the classroom.
We had an ambitious plan for the day, and managed to keep to it.
For many of the teachers, it was the first time they had seen the Adobe Spark products in action. It was great to see how inspired the teachers were with the potential of these great products in the classroom.
The afternoon session was focused on video editing with Adobe Premiere Pro. I was very impressed with what the teachers were able to achieve, especially the ones who had little to no previous experience with this professional tool.
Special thank you to Leanne Cameron (President of ICTENSW) for helping to make this event such a success.
Leanne Cameron, welcoming everyone on behalf of the ICTENSW Committee. Chris Woldhuis (Adobe Education Leader) in the background with the camera.
Over 550 High School students from the Riverina Region of NSW met at the beautiful campus of Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga for the first of a series of Big Day In events that are planned around Australia.
The Big Day In events are coordinated by the Australian Computer Society Foundation. They aim to encourage senior High School students to consider a career in the field of Information Technology.
Adobe had been a proud supporter of The Big Day In since 2015. In 2016, there were 11 Big Day In events involving over 6,500 students, 177 speakers, 167 exhibitors, 77 organisations. This year’s roadshow will be run in at least 15 locations nationally so even more people will be involved.
I had the pleasure of being the opening keynote presenter for this event and my message was based around being a life long creator. I encouraged the students to think about what their passions are, to think entrepreneurially and turn their passions into job before they leave school.
I shared some of the agreed perceptions between teachers of Gen Z and Gen Z students themselves that came out of Adobe’s recent Gen Z study.
I also pointed out that half of what were considered the world’s best multinational workplaces in 2016 were IT companies.
Another focus of the presentation was to highlight the recent work of Marc Prensky who has collated the many skills that industry is looking for in young people as they come through the education system.
It was a pleasure meeting hundreds of the students at the Adobe stand during the breaks and encouraging them to learn Adobe software and use it to help brand and promote themselves.
Special thanks to Kerrie Rhodes and John Ridge from the Australian Computer Society Foundation for putting this event together.
John Ridge (ACS Foundation Executive Director) with me at the Adobe booth
The local WIN News did a story about the day. It was great to see the Adobe banners on show in the background. If this interview with John was framed better with the rule of thirds, you would see me in the background demonstrating some Adobe software. Oh well!
Special congratulations to Mitchell from Mount Austin High School, in Wagga for winning a 12 month Adobe Creative Cloud License.
Dr Tim Kitchen 