On Monday, 28 April 2025, Ascham School ran a special professional learning conference for their teaching staff called TechXcelerate.
Ascham School is a prestigious independent, non-denominational day and boarding school for girls, located in Edgecliff, an inner eastern suburb of Sydney. Established in 1886, the school has a long-standing tradition of academic excellence and holistic education.
The Adobe for Kids Holiday program was back in the Adobe Sydney office on April 23 & 24, 2025. About 60 kids aged 9 to 14 worked in small groups to plan & produce a set of wonderful short video/animations with Adobe Express based on how to make the world a better place for everyone.
It was delightful to see the way they worked together so beautifully throughout each day to do the brainstorming, research, scripting and then the actual production. For many of the students it was their first time working with Adobe Express.
Scroll down to see some samples.
Some of the feedback highlights from the students included …
We made a video about how to make the world a better place.
A highlight was when we learned how to animate the characters, include the transitions and add the audio. It was fun and challenging at the same time.
I liked that i got to learn new skills and got to play with my creativity.
A highlight of today was working in a teem, and also having fun learning about the features on Adobe
I love making the animations
My highlight is making the video with all the adobe tools like Gen AI.
My highlight was making the video with my partner and learning lots of new things.
Adobe express is the best and the staff is very kind.
Adobe express is cool 🌈
Making a presentation as a group
The staff at adobe are very helpful
There’s an activity where we can earn prize, it’s when we do the “do this”, “do that”.
This is a great experience
Being able to be creative with software that allowed me to be imaginative
Having fun with my friends.
Being able to work on a video about being kind with my favourite sister.
It was very fun creating the story
Solving the problems we had.
I enjoyed animating the characters and the recordings.
The NTSDE plays a crucial role in providing educational opportunities to students who cannot attend traditional schools due to geographical, social, or other constraints. It offers a comprehensive range of online senior secondary courses aligned with the Australian Curriculum and the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE). It uses modern technologies and innovative teaching methods, such as flipped learning pedagogy, and Adobe Express to ensure students receive a high-quality education regardless of their location.
I would like to thank Dina Campbell-McQuillan (Learning Area Leader Arts) for organising this professional learning opportunity for her colleagues.
On Wednesday 2nd April, I was invited to work with the Year 5 & 6 students at Zuccoli Primary School, in Palmerston, about a 20 min drive out of Darwin in the Northern Territory.
The students worked in pairs with their class laptops to get to know the education version of Adobe Express and create a short animated video about how to make the world a better place to live. The students really enjoyed working with the software and I’m looking forward to hearing about what they will be achieving in the future.
Only 5 years old, Zuccoli Primary is located in a newly created suburb. The school focuses on innovative teaching and learning programs that foster inquiry-based learning and explicit teaching methods. It is committed to developing students into lifelong learners and independent global citizens, with a strong focus on respect, responsibility, resilience, curiosity, and integrity
A very well equipped school, it shares facilities with Mother Teresa Catholic Primary School, including an oval, air-conditioned hall, library, home economics, and science rooms.
I would like to thank Georgia Trindall (Digital Technology Specialist) and Chantelle Scott (NT DoE Teaching and Learning Advisor) for organising this visit.
April 2025 started with my second trip to the Northern Territory for the year and one of the highlights was spending time at the amazing students and teachers from Darwin High School.
Darwin High currently caterers to students in years 10-12 but will be opening up to younger year levels in the near future. The school is known for its strong academic programs and commitment to providing a comprehensive education and a standout feature of the school is its state-of-the-art STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) Centre.
Officially opened in October 2019, this $21 million facility offers students access to modern, interconnected classrooms, a cutting-edge robotics and electronics hub, and versatile presentation and project spaces and lots more. The STEAM Centre is designed to foster collaboration, innovation, and problem-solving skills, preparing students for future careers in STEAM fields.
The Adobe Creative Cloud is used in a range of subject areas with a focus on Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and InDesign. It was my pleasure to introduce these students to what Adobe Express can offer, especially as a link to Adobe Stock and a great tool for creating assets to be used in Adobe’s pro-tools.
Close to 50 Darwin High School teachers registered for the Adobe Creative Educators Level 1 course that was run after school on Wednesday 2nd April.
It was great seeing representatives from most subject areas interested in expanding their understanding of why creativity is important is all curriculum areas and join the international Adobe Creative Educator community.
It was wonderful to catch up with delightful Anne Myerscough whose husband Dr Mark went to school with me in the mid 1980s and has been doing great work as a medical professional with indigenous communities in Darwin since the 1990s.
I would like to thank Manju Dhir (Senior Teacher. LOTE, IT, Business) for making the above sessions happen and encouraging so many of her colleagues and students to be involved.
Organised by Adobe partner Data#3, Juice IT stands as Australia’s premier free IT Solutions & Services conference. In 2025, the event will take place in Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Fiji, and Sydney. I was honored to be invited to speak at a special executive breakfast during the Brisbane event on Wednesday, March 26th, hosted by my friend (HP Education Ambassador) and Adobe Creative Educator – Innovator Brett Salakas.
The breakfast event was with senior representatives from a range of Queensland schools as well as the Fiji Department of Education and the focus was how AI is being used in schools. It was a pleasure to share some of the recent research Adobe has done with Advanis in the Creativity with AI in Education 2025 report.
Davide Wain (Data#3 National Practice Manager – Education Sector) introducing the session.Meeting Ravin Rai from the Fiji Department of Education
The Brisbane Juice IT was attended by over 550 IT specialists from a wide range of industries and was sponsored by 35 IT companies including Adobe.
Rey Chapman from Adobe in action at the Adobe boothAdobe Senior Solution Consultant Matt Davis presenting one of the breakout sessions.
The highlight of the main conference event for me was meeting the keynote speaker Dr Michelle Dickinson, one of the most inspiring Women in STEM I have met. She has worked with Steve Jobs on helping to invent the iPhone, she has also worked on many other inventions with amazing collaborators including Sir Richard Branson.
I would like to thank Dave Wain and especially Isabelle Grisales for inviting me to be involved in this event.
About 1,200 high school students from all over Sydney visited UTS on March 18 & 19 for the Big Day In event.
Day 1 featured an inspiring speech from Zali Steggall OAM (independent federal member for Warringah). She shared her experience as a lawyer, former Winter Olympic athlete and current ultra-marathon athlete. Zali encouraged the students to follow their passions and consider a career in a STEM industry.
A highlight for me was sharing the stage with Vishal Repaka. I recently met Vishal in one of the lunch rooms at the Adobe Sydney office where he asked if I was the Tim Kitchen who spoke at the Big Day In events. He reflected that in 2015 he attended the Big Day In event at UTS as a Year 12 student at Fort Street High School. After hearing me and other presenters do our session on stage, he was inspired to consider a career in the IT industry. He was accepted into the WiseTech Global scholarship program, which helped him completed an IT degree at UTS.
In 2019, while studying at UTS, Vishal was asked to be one of the UTS Big Day In hosts for the Sydney events. During his studies and after he graduated he has contracts as a Software Engineer with a number of companies including IBM iX, Aten Systems, 2DataFish, Sail Business Loans, Venntifact and earlier this year he started working as a Data Architect with Adobe’s Professional Services team.
Vishal’s story captured the attention of the Australian Computer Society Foundation who run the Big Day In events and they interviewed him on camera so that other students can be inspired by his journey.
Here is the Adobe presentation …
Both Vishal and Jerry Wong from the Adobe Edu Team helped as we met with hundred of students and encouraged them to scan a QR code that linked to a number of short tutorials that I have created to help students and teachers get to know Adobe Express better.
Day 2 commenced with a great message from Professor Andrew Parfitt, Vice-Chancellor and President of UTS sharing how he started his career as an IT Engineer before the Internet was around and prior to mobile phone technology. He inspired the students to consider IT as a career because of all the good that it can bring to the world and how it is an ever dynamic industry.
Molly Turner from the Adobe Edu team helped support me on this day and a highlight for us was meeting Isabella Hogan who shared that she was a big Adobe fan after using many of the applications at her High School. She now works with an wonderful organistion called Girls Programming Network that runs free programing workshops focused on learning together, making new friends and having fun with tech.
Here are some images from both days at Big Day In Sydney …
The ICTENSW 2025 DigiTLL Conference was held at ACU in North Sydney on the weekend of March 15 & 16, 2025. Involving about 150 teachers in-person and online, this event was an educational summit advocating on matters of curriculum and equity, promoting best practice in the use of AI, ICT, STEM and Computer Science in learning.
Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) – Innovator Matt Esterman was the opening keynote presenter. He was very thought provoking, sharing a number of points about AI in Education from his new book The Next Word that he wrote with ACE-Leader Dr Nick Jackson.
Adobe Creative Educator – Innovator Brett Salakas was the opening keynote on the Sunday and he dressed up as an Lord from the Elizabethan era and shared a number of examples of how AI is effectively being use in classrooms around the globe.
Adobe Creative Educator – Leader Greg Stewart was awarded one of three 2024 ICTENSW Regional School Scholarships to help fund his appearance at the conference.
One of the many workshop opportunities involved and opportunity for the teachers to complete the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 micro-credential.
It was great to see Stephen Henderson (the AI Teacher Guy) and the Director of Innovation at Snowy Mountains Grammar School do a workshop presentation
I had the honour of presenting the closing keynote presentation titled – Creating joyful learning experiences with AI.
I would like to congratulate ICTENSW President Karen Binns and the rest of the conference committee for all the work they contributed to make this event a success.
It was great to see a number of Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) Leaders and Innovators involved in the AI in Education Sydney event held at the NBN Discovery Centre on Friday 14th March.
The brainchild of NSW Educator Simone Hirsch, this event brought together some of Australia’s best EdTech thought leaders with educators from a range of sectors to discuss how to best integrate AI in education.
I was very proud to see ACE Innovators Brett Salakas & Matt Easterman hosting alongside Simone and ACE-Leader Dr Nick Jackson as one of the presenters.
This event marks the launch of a virtual Community of Practice that will convene for 10 sessions between March and August. This initiative will culminate in the publication of a free AI in Education professional learning website, serving as a valuable resource for educators worldwide.
Simone is a recent recipient of the a NSW Premier’s Teaching Scholarship: NESA Quality Teaching Recipient Unit Coordinator – Innovation. This event is a result of what Simone discovered during her travels as part of the scholarship.
It was great to have fellow Adobe Education team members Molly Turner & Kaitlin Hartley at the event.
During this event, Dan Bowen and his podcast partner Ray Fleming recorded lots of content for their AI in Education podcast. Both Brett Salakas and I were interviewed. I’m looking forward to hearing the results.
On the 13th March 2025, students from Mitchell High School in Sydney’s west visited the Adobe office in Darling Harbour as part of the ABCN My Career Rules program and worked with 15 Adobe mentors.
The Australian Business Community Network (ABCN) partners with Australian businesses to break down barriers for students from low socio-economic backgrounds by offering structured, workplace-based mentoring programs. These initiatives aim to raise aspirations, build essential skills, and broaden students’ horizons.
My Career Rules provides students with the opportunity to meet and engage with professionals from various industries, expanding their awareness of careers that align with today’s workforce. By connecting classroom learning with real-world work experiences, the program emphasises the importance of the skills and mindsets necessary for a successful future career.
I had the pleasure of demonstrating the value of Adobe Express for Education to the students, showing how it can enhance learning across various curriculum areas.
The reflections and feedback from the students and mentors were a tribute to the value of this type of program
A special thank you to Olivia Yeates from Adobe for coordinating this event, all the Adobe mentors, the ABCN presenter Guy Cuthbertson, Michael Turner (Mitchell High teacher and Adobe Creative Educators-Leader), and most importantly, the students for making this day a success.
Dr Tim Kitchen 