It has been amazing to have Dr Todd Taylor and Sebastian Distefano from the Adobe World Wide Higher Education Development team in Australia this week.
Today, the team worked with about 40 educators and support staff from Victoria University in Melbourne.
Following over 20 years as a Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr Taylor is now working for Adobe as the Senior Strategic Development Manager for Higher Education.
Today’s session was focused on working with Spark Page, Premiere Rush and Adobe Audition. Dr Taylor is passionate about encouraging students and teachers to learn and teach with multi-modal methods. He has many years of experience working with educators and encouraging them to develop their digital literacy skills.
The big challenge he posed at the start of this session was to encourage the educators to allow students to work with Adobe Spark as an assessment option and then compare the results. He is confident that students will want to continue working with Spark over tradition word processing and slide tools that they have been using for years.
Have a look at this video from Dr Taylor’s formal university and note the way Adobe tools are integrated into all facilities as an essential assessment and productivity tool.
On Thursday August 8, a group of talented Year 11 media students from The Ponds High School visited the Adobe Sydney office for an Adobe Day based on video editing with Premiere Pro.
The Ponds High School is a new NSW DoE school in the north-west of Sydney that opened in 2015 and these Year 11 students will be the first to graduate at the end of 2020.
After a tour of the office, the students enhanced and developed their video editing skills by creating a story based on footage that was provided to them as well as green screen footage that they captured.
They learned all the basic Premiere Pro fundamentals and created a range of very creative video stories.
I’d like to thank educator Liz Rose (Head Teacher TAS) for organising this excursion for her students. Liz recently became an Adobe Campus Leader which involved being an active member of the Adobe Education Exchange.
Stay tuned for a video story about this event coming soon to CreateEdu TV.
One of the highlights of Education Week with for the NSW Department of Education is The Game Changer Challenge and it was a pleasure for Adobe to again be involved.
About 100 NSW DoE schools entered the 2019 Challenge and 18 primary & secondary school groups from all over NSW were selected to take part.
Schools involved were …
This year’s Challenge was How might we humanise technology?
Distinguished Professor Mary-Anne Williams, University of Sydney
Dr Matt Beard, The Ethics Centre
Jillian Kilby, CEO and founder The Infrastructure Collaborative
Lloyd Godson, Hastings Secondary College Marine Studies Centre
Lee Hickin, National TechnologyOfficer Microsoft Australia
Hon Sarah Mitchell with the expert panelists
Following the panel session, the students met with an amazing group of facilitators who guided them through the challenge which involved using a design thinking approach to solving a problem focused on the theme of humanising technology.
At the end of Day 1, all the students were bused to Parramatta where they had the amazing opportunity to stay at the Parkroyal Hotel ready for Day two at the NSW Department of Education Building on Phillip St, Parramatta.
Day 2
Day 2 of the Challenge involved dividing teh student groups up to take part in a range of workshop events including an Adobe workshop that I ran on Character Animator for the secondary students and an Adobe Spark workshop for the primary students run by Andrew Balzer from the T4L team at the NSW DoE.
Other workshops included sessions from Microsoft, Google, The University of Sydney, the Stem.T4L team at the NSW DoE as well as a how to design a pitch session buy the amazing story teller and poet Miles Merrill.
The students were all encouraged to take back what they learned from the workshops to their group with the aim of using their new skills and knowledge to help with their solution pitch on Day 3.
Makerspace
Following the workshops, the students met back with their groups to work on their solution pitch as part of a large makerspace session.
It was a pleasure to be involved with this event again and it is always a joy to see students collaborating, problem solving, designing and creating.
...this is what school should be like all the time.
In an interview I did with a teacher for a video story about this event (stay tuned to CreateEdu TV), a teacher said to me that this is what school should be like all the time. Great engagement, amazing creativity, so much learning and a wonderful way to help prepare these future leaders to help solve some of the big problems the world is (and will be facing) in the near future.
On Friday August 2, Over 60 NSW and other Aussie educators from K12 & Higher Ed visited Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Adobe for a day focused on Artificial Intelligence and its impact on Education. This event was run by the NSW Department of Education T4L team and was sponsored by Intel. It was a wonderful example of how education and industry can work together to share and learn from each other.
Education leaders from the following schools, universities & organisations took part:
Wollongong Catholic Education Office
Department of Education NSW
Macquarie University
The Media Lab
Aurora College
CSIRO Education and Outreach (Digital Careers)
Association of Independent Schools of South Australia
University of Newcastle
Robert Townson High School
HETI higher education
ACARA
Sylvania Heights PS
University of New South Wales
Mayfield West Demonstration School
Ravenswood School for Girls
Killara High School
#aussieED
Catalyst Lab Innovation Program
Transport for NSW
Dept of Education Victoria
UniSA
Roseville College
Australian Academy of Science
University of Technology Sydney
LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building, University of Sydney
Intel
University of Wollongong
Forestville Public School
University of Newcastle
Gradient Institute
Google
Microsoft
Amazon
The Adobe part of the day was run by Jamie Ragen (Adobe – Manager Solution Consulting, Digial Media) and myself. The main focus of our presentation was the use of AI in Adobe applications. Adobe’s AI engine is called Adobe Sensei.
Jamie ran through a number of demonstrations of Adobe Sensei in action within Photoshop, Premiere Pro, XD, Rush and other Adobe apps and I helped to put these into an education context.
It was a pleasure to host so many education influencers in the one space.
Special thanks to my friend Jo Cohen and the team at NSW DoE T4L for coordinating this amazing day.
This week, hundreds of TAFE NSW students graduated from a wide range of certificate courses related to Creative Industries. It was a pleasure for Jerry Wong and me to represent Adobe at the ceremonies held at the Nepean Campus in Kingswood and the Cambelltown Campous.
Michael Cullen, Regional General Manager for TAFE NSW and George Verghese, Head of Skills Team for Creative and Design ideation both presented inspiring messages of congratulations to the graduating students and their families.
It was great to catch up with Adobe Education Leader Craig Daalmeijer-Power who is the Head Teacher at Nepean Arts & Design Centre for TAFE NSW.
Congratulations to all the graduating students, especially those who were the first in their families to receive a formal certificate qualification. The work that TAFE NSW is doing in Western Sydeny to help provide employment and training opportunities is outstanding. It is always inspiring to see our students are improving their lives and the lives of people around them with digital creativity skills and the use of Adobe products.
The 2019 Nth American AEL Summit took place from July 22 to 25 at the Adobe office in San Francisco with about 100 Adobe Education Leaders from all over the globe.
Meet some of the AELs and what they were looking forward to at the start of this event …
Clara Galán, Adobe’s Global Community Lead, K-12 & Higher Education, welcomed everyone to official start the Summit. Have a listen to her address …
Tacy Trowbridge, Adobe’s Global Education Programs Lead, then addressed the educators and shared about some of the recent changes Adobe has made to their education teams.
Adobe’s new Global Head of Education, Henry Hsiao introduced himself to the AELs and the wider education community with the following address that shared his vision for Adobe in Education.
Highlights of Day 1
Creative Catalyst Talks
The following Creative Catalyst Talks from various AELs were a highlight of the Summit.
Teaching Game Production & Creating Games for Social Good
by Andy Phelps
Andy is a Professor of Film and Media Arts at the American University Game Lab. He is soon to start another position as Professor of Human Interface Technology, at the College of Engineering at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch New Zealand.
Are Your Question Marks Big Enough? Why Epic Projects are Worth the Risk
by Lisa Gottfried and one of her students from New Tech High, California.
Lisa Gottfried has taught CTE Digital Design at New Tech High for 6 years and is an Adjunct Professor at Touro University in Innovative Education. In 2017/18, Lisa was recognised internationally for Innovation in Education with Blog Portfolios through HundrED.org and also won the “Innovation in the Classroom” grant from California Educational Research Association. She is also currently a professor for Touro University in the Innovative Ed. Masters program and is a proud member of the Adobe Education Leaders group.
Inspire Your School Community: Building The Leaders of Tomorrow
by Georgina Dean
Georgina is the Primary Google Learning Management Systems Coordinator at Modern English School Cairo. She has been the holder of the Excellence in Education Award for the past 3 consecutive years, and always looking for new ways to raise the bar in education by inspiring digital integration. She is about to start a new chapter in her education journal in Amman, Jordan.
TeachMeet: Ignite Creative Catalyst Talks
We also enjoyed hearing the following Ignite Creative Catalyst Talks from the AEL community.
Fostering creativity through storytelling
by Michael Hernandez
Sparking Creativity
by David Dodds
Designing Adobe CC Micro-Lessons to Share with Faculty & Students: What & Why
by Shelley Rodrigo
Why what you are doing in school might be under threat
by Ian Usher
What is Instructional Design
by Deila Bumgardner
Be Pro-active
by Leonard Barbar
Understanding what ‘Flash’ has become when dealing with the modern, open web
On Wednesday July 17, I worked with a group of academics and support staff at the Monash University Education Faculty to enhance their knowledge of a number of Adobe applications and how they can be used to enhance teaching & learning.
We started by playing with Spark Post, with a particular focus on the new animated sticker feature on iOS & Android.
We then progressed to Spark Video and Premiere Rush to show how video is so easily accessible these days as a communication tool.
Then we spent some time playing with Character Animator and work-shopped the ease of real-time animation and how it can be used by academics and students.
It was great to catch up with my friend Roland Gesthuizen who took the above images and is now planning some wider engagement with Monash staff & students for later in 2019.
About 200 NSW Department of Education teachers from the Hunter Valley region took part in the InteractED event at The University of Newcastle on Wednesday July 3.
InteractED is a series of events run by the NSW DoE T4L team around NSW with an aim to enhance the use of digital technologies throughout NSW Government Schools. So far this year, Adobe, Google, Apple and Microsoft have been involved with the InteractED events in Sydney, Wagga Wagga, Wollongong and this one in Newcastle. Later in the year, InteractED will hit Coffs Harbour and Dubbo.
This event began with a great keynote presentation from Chris Betcher from Google. Chris is also an Adobe Education Leader and a well known education thought leader in Australia. He flipped his keynote by using Google’s collaboration tools to get the audience to to contribute most of the content.
I was up on stage next to do a keynote sessions titled Creativity is not an option, it’s an absolute necessity. I used this opportunity to share some of the key themes from Sir Ken Robinson’s messaging at EduTech this year such as:
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Then we spent some time looking at this question …
I also provided the teachers with some information on how they can enhance digital creativity within their curriculum areas with the help of their Adobe products.
Following the keynote, I ran the following three workshop sessions …
Feedback from the organisers …
Tim I love the way you provide the why in the keynote and then the how in your workshops…the hands on demonstrations and using participants to present is such Gold!!!
Special thank you to Mark Greentree, Jo Cohen and the T4L team for putting on such a great event.
On June 29 & 30, about 200 Queensland educators attended Creativity 2019, QSITE’s annual two-day conference at the Griffith University Gold Coast campus.
I had the pleasure to facilitate a Character Animator workshop on day 1 with a range of teachers from primary & secondary teachers.
Rob the Robot helped me with this session.
To start day 2, I presented a keynote session titles Creativity in not an option, it is a necessity.
About 4.5K creatives and marketing professionals attended the 2019 Adobe Symposium on June 27 & 28 at the Sydney ICC with thousands more watching live from all over the globe.
As it says on the Symposium website it is about evolving experiences. It’s not only where experience makers are born, but where they go to grow.
At this event, Adobe’s three clouds (Creative, Document & Experience) combined for an exhibition of data management and creativity. CIOs and graphic designers from all over APAC gathered together to learn more about how and who Adobe is a leader in digital transformation for many business and organisations.
Suzanne Steele hosted the keynote session at the start of day 1. Suzanne is Adobe’s Managing Director for ANZ.
One of the highlights was the keynote from the amazing Holly Ransom.
Holly Ransom is the CEO of Emergent, a company that specialises in change management disruptive strategy and building the capacity of leaders. Emergent, has worked with the following companies: Microsoft, Virgin, INPEX, Europcar, KPMG, & the AIS, as well as local, state and federal government departments globally.
Holly was the youngest person to be named in Australia’s ‘100 Most Influential Women’ in 2012. In 2016, she was listed by Sir Richard Branson as one of his dream dinner guests, and in 2017 was Sir Richard’s nominee for Wired Magazine’s ‘Smart List’ of future game changers to watch. In 2018, she was personally requested by Barack Obama to moderate an hour-long conversation with during his only engagement in Australia.
Adobe’s Vice President of Marketing for Asia Pacific, Alvaro del Pozo shared about the opportunity for marketers to design and deliver exceptional experiences.
Steve Hammond, Adobe’s Sr. Director, APAC Experience Business, was involved with a number of main stage presentations throughout day 1. Steve recently moved with his family from the United States to Australia to lead the Experience Business for the region.
Alex Amado flew in from the US to be part of this year’s Symposium event. As VP of Experience Marketing at Adobe, Alex Amado is responsible for creating and delivering compelling experiences that reflect Adobe’s brand which was recently ranked the 56th most valuable global brand by Interbrand.
Alex interviewed Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes from The Presets, who recently collaborated with Adobe on a Lyrical Masters challenge for creative types to design 100 lyrics from their song ‘Tools Down’ using Adobe Creative Cloud software. Click here to find out more.
The Presets have been recognised globally for their dynamic live performances, playing hundreds of shows domestically and internationally, including key slots at renowned international music festivals such as Glastonbury, Coachella, SXSW, Exit, Melt and Splendour In The Grass.
Another highlight was the SNEAKS session featuring one of Australia’s most well known comedians/actors Julia Morris.
SNEAKS is all about showing new inventions from the Adobe Lab that may end up part of or on their own as an Adobe app.
Click here to see a full list of all the presenters at Adobe Symposium 2019.
Dr Tim Kitchen 