On Tuesday 30th April, I was invited to run the Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) Level 1 course with Pre-Service teaching students as well as a number of academics at UTS (University of Technology Sydney).

I would like to thank Keith Heggart, Director for the Centre for Research on Education in a Digital Society at UTS for organising this opportunity for his students and colleagues.

It is always a delight to be fostering the value of creativity in education.

Feedback highlights:

• Finishing the assessment and feeling fulfilled as I was learning how to use a new program.
• I loved the use of technology and the practice-based nature of the course
• Seeing the generative AI tool create custom images
• Utilising the diverse tools- but more importantly the focus on creativity and its link to critical thinking.
• Great lesson, very engaging, great presenter
• Clear and concise structure, Tim is a clear and engaging presenter.

On Monday, April 29th, I had the privilege of leading an Adobe Express Gen AI workshop for approximately 65 educators from the Sydney North West Region Professional Development network. This network comprises esteemed institutions like Knox Grammar, Barker College, Abbotsleigh, Arden Anglican School, and The King’s School. The workshop centered around exploring ethical and safe options for Gen AI image creation tailored for junior school students, with a specific emphasis on utilising Adobe Express for image and video creation.

For many educators, the workshop served as their first encounter with Adobe Express and an introduction to the responsible utilisation of Gen AI. The discussion emphasised the importance of safe Gen AI practices, particularly within the context of K-12 filtering integrated into Adobe Stock. This ensures that any content produced adheres to ethical standards and is suitable for publication.

We also looked at how to convert a student’s writing into a multimedia production and I left them with this workshop resource to use in their classrooms.

Many of the teachers reflected how excited they were to apply what they learned as soon as they were back in class with their students.

Prior to my session, the wonderful Education Consultant and Gen AI expert Leon Furze presented via live MS Teams link up. I’ve worked on similar events with Leon and read a number of his articles as well as his new book Practical AI Strategies. He is a great presenter and provided lots of great practical advice to help the teachers understand how Gen AI can be safely and effectively managed in the context of a classroom.

Blake Moon (IT Integrator at Knox Grammar), one of the main organisers of the day gave me a quick tour of the Knox Prep Innovation Hub. I was amazing ed the facilities the school has provided, and this was just for the Junior School. I told Blake that the late great Professor Seymour Papert from MIT would be very proud of the work the school is doing to encourage innovation, invention and creativity.

I would like to thank Susanne Floro, (Head of the Knox Grammar Prep School), and Ian Fairhurst (Team Leader of Innovation and Technology at Knox Grammar Prep School) and their team for hosting this event. Also thanks to Jon Dunk (Digital Learning Specialist and Teacher) from Abbotsleigh School for hosting my session.

On Monday 15^th April, I was honoured to be part of a wonderful panel of presenters at a staff professional learning day at St Michael’s Grammar School in Melbourne. The focus of this session was the Future of Schooling and the other panelist included:

• Dr Glenn Savage (University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education)                  
• Jayne Johnston (University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education) &
• Diana  Hodgson  (HR Strategic Partners)     

We all seemed to complement each other as we shared thoughts on what the school of the future should look like.

I connected Professor Seymour Papert’s 8 big ideas behind his constructionism learning theory as a framework for thinking about how schooling should be done now and in the future. Click here to see my slides.

This event was organised by Ross Phillips, St Michael’s Associate Head – Research, Innovation & Professional Practice.

On Friday 12th April I met just about every careers advisor employed by the Singapore Ministry of Education and shared some of the research around skills that we should be encouraging students to foster to best prepare them for the future workplace.

The title of the presentation was Creativity in a Gen AI World and we looked at some the work of Professor Seymour Papert and Sir Ken Robinson. We also looked at the research from the World Economic Forum form 2016 to 2023 where they rated the most important skills to thrive in the future.

The importance of enhancing creativity skills was a big part of the presentation. We looked at the different types of creativity and how empowering students to engage in the creative process enhances their involvement in the learning journey, making them more able to understand concepts.

One of the interactive activities we did was to create a word cloud that highlighted what words best describe creativity.

The Q&A session led by Amin after the presentation opened up some interesting discussions about how creativity can apply to the current education system.

I announced that I will be back in August for a series of student engagements where 10 lucky students from each school will be able to visit the Adobe Singapore office to work with me to help them create a great looking resume with Adobe Express.

I would like to thank Sara V, Amin Morni, Melisa Lim, Xin Er Lee & Hui Shan Peha from the Singapore Ministry of Education as well as my colleagues Titu Minas and Sue Ho for organising this opportunity.

I’m looking forward to being back in August.

On Thursday the 11th of April I had the pleasure of speaking to about 400 IT students and teachers at Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education (ITE) about skills required to thrive in the future.

The mission of ITE is to Create Opportunities for Students and Adult Learners to Acquire Skills, Knowledge and Values for Employability and Lifelong Learning. The attendees comprised first-year IT students, delving into diverse disciplines encompassing Cybersecurity, App Development, Game Design, and beyond. Among the session’s focal points was the recognition of Creativity as a coveted skill not only within the IT sector but across various industries.

All ITE students and teachers are equipped with access to the Adobe Creative Cloud, empowering them to augment their digital literacy and foster creativity. I encouraged them to seize this opportunity to familiarise themselves with these tools while they’re freely available, cultivating skills in digital content creation essential for their future career pursuits.

I would like to thank Daniel Choo from ITE and my colleague Sue Ho who helped to put this event together. It has been great to be back in Singapore.

I had the pleasure of doing an Adobe Day with the Year 6 classes at Kardinia International College in Geelong, Victoria on Monday 25th March, 2024.

Kardinia is an IB school, which means it follows the International Baccalaureate curriculum. The PYP (Primary Years Program) focuses on nurturing young minds through inquiry-based learning, encouraging students to explore, question, and understand the world around them. Critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and creativity is at the heart of Kardina and all of these skills were on display during this Adobe Day.

The aim of this Adobe Day was to have the students work in small groups to create a 1-minute promotional video for one of the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals using Adobe Express.

Rather than filming individual students, the groups were asked to use the Animate from audio feature within Adobe Express to get digital puppets to do the bulk of the presenting.

I was very impressed with how the groups worked so well together to get the project completed in time for the showcase at the end of the day. It was obvious that the Kardina teachers had spent a lot of time and care teaching the student how to collaborate and problem solve.

Each group created a script for their production then proceeded to record each section of the script using an Adobe Express character. Then they worked through the process of adding video content, still images, music as well as other elements found within the Adobe Express access to the K-12 friendly version of Adobe Stock.

Considering the students has not used Adobe Express before, what they produced in such a short time frame was outstanding. Have a looks at some of the samples below.

After school, all the Junior School staff as well as some members of the Senior School joined me for a professional learning session focused on getting to know some of the tools they had within the Adobe Creative Cloud set of applications, with a focus on Adobe Express.

Feedback highlights included:

• Being able to play and trial things ourselves during the session.
• Staff engagement
• How engaging the presenter was and incorporating staff in the presentation.
• Creating after each demo.
• Hands on learning
• Learning about Adobe Express and all of its incredible potential for our students
• Adding music to the video
• The free pens for volunteering
• The ease with which backgrounds could be removed and film making
• Watching students engage with the product and share their knowledge
• Getting up and having a go. Helps me connect to how children might feel when using something new.
• Learning about character animator as I can see where it can be applied for year 10 media immediately.

Other comments:

• Great session.. have ideas forming for curriculum content.
• I would love to learn more specific to my learning age group
• Thanks for an amazing day Tim!

I would like to thank Aisha Kristiansen (Head of Innovation & Technology K-12), Matt Baron (Head of Junior School) and all the Year 6 teachers for helping to make this day such a success.

Have a look at some samples of what the students produced …

This year’s two 2024 Sydney Big Day In events involved over 1000 students from a wide range of NSW schools on March 20 & 21 at University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

The Big Day In is a series of events around the country run by the Australian Computer Society Foundation that encourage students to consider a career in STEM.

I had the privilege of being the opening keynote presenter for both days and sharing some of the research around the skills that are required to thrive and establish a career in STEM and many other industry areas. We also ran a special Adobe Express activity that involved the students creating an image with the Gen AI Adobe Firefly capabilities of their dream job.

Professor Vicki Chen, Provost & Senior Vice-President, UTS and Dr Ian Oppermann, Industry Professor both set the scene and welcomed the students on both days. Other key presenters included:

• Valessa Basic (Australian Signals Directorate)
• Naomi Perera (Google)
• Mark Flanagan (Animal Logic)
• Aeesha Bello, Holly Craig & Jack McCowan (Wisetech Global)
• Dan Bowen (Microsoft)
• Lieutenant Bridget Free (Defence Force Recruiting)
  

More information about day 1 can be found here and day 2 here.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the ANZ Adobe Edu Team Kaitlin Hartley and Molly Turner for helping me at the Adobe stand and being such great photographers.

On Wednesday, 13 March 2024, I had the pleasure of running an Adobe Day, as well as an Adobe Creative Educator level 1 course to the students and teaches at Matthew Flinders Anglican College on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

The school provides the Adobe Creative Cloud set of applications to its students and teachers, so it was a delight to be able to share the value of these tools and how they can be used to enhance teaching and learning.

Many students showed keen interest in Adobe Express, a user-friendly browser-based tool for designing videos, animations, and more. Throughout the day, I collaborated with various classes, seamlessly incorporating Adobe Express, Adobe Character Animator, and Photoshop into their ongoing projects. Witnessing the numerous “aha” moments among students as they discovered the creative potential of these tools was truly gratifying.

After school, I ran the Adobe Creative Educator level 1 course with about 36 Teacher. This course is a mix of the theory of why creativity is important in education as well as some practical applications using Adobe Express.

According to the feedback, highlights of this session included:

• Everything
• Learning about the 4 C’s of creativity, the ease of using Adobe Express
• Animation and AI aspects of Adobe
• Realising how much the students can create through this. And also making me realise how much I want to get creative myself.
• Voice to animation
• Others coming up and doing some things – hilarious
• All of it!
• Learning creativity
• Great presentation – thank you so much for coming in person.
• Understanding the types of creativity and the hands on nature of creativity the webpage.
• Creating a webpage
• Using AI to create
• The highlight of the event was looking at the credentials of an image, in particular where the image is being created from and the date of its origin.
• Sharing links

Other comments

• Fabulous
• Engaging and feeling inspired
• Loved today’s session. Can’t wait to implement some of these things into the classroom
• I enjoyed the networking with other Adobe creative educators.

I would like to thank, Chris Topp (Technology Services and Innovation Manager) and his team organising this special day at his school.

On Tuesday, 12th March, I had the pleasure of being the opening keynote speaker at the Big Day In event on the Sunshine Coast.

Hosted by the Australian Computer Society Foundation, the Big Day In is a series of events around Australia to encourage students to consider a future career in the Information Technology industry.

About 400 students from a range of Queensland schools were involved in this event.

This year, Data#3 is helping Adobe with a number of Big Day in events around Australia. It was lovely to have Isabel Grisales from Data#3 support the Adobe stand and promote a special activity where students were encouraged to use Adobe Express to depict their dream job.

Here are a couple of the images they came up with …