It was a great pleasure to be on the the Gold Coast in Queensland to spend Monday June 3 at Merrimac State High School with Adobe Education Leader Rose Duggan and group of her talented media students.
The great thing about Character Animator is that it allows for real-time animation because facial features can be tracked by any web-cam.
The students were challenged to work with a small team to create a short story that featured at least one digital puppet and, if possible, the incorporation of human talent via a green screen.
I was very impressed with what the students achieved in a relatively short amount of time. Even though some of the groups didn’t have a finished product at the end of the day, what they achieved in the process of design, collaboration and creativity was very impressive.
It has been a couple of years since I have been able to take part in the Big Day In at our nation’s capital, Canberra, This year, it was hosted by the Australian National University on May 30 and well worth attending.
Professor Genevieve Bell, opened the event with a wonderful message to the students about how she was just like them in her youth and how there is no limit to what they can achieve. Professor Bell is the Australian National University’s Director of the 3A Institute (3Ai), Florence Violet McKenzie Chair & Vice President & Senior Fellow, Intel Corporation. After a number of years living and working in the Silicon Valley in California, she still works for Intel while continuing her academic work at ANU.
Another highlight was hearing from Anntonette Dailey, Executive Director for the Australian Space Agency. Anntonette manages the operations & communications for the Agency.
It was so inspiring to hear about the work of these two amazing Australian women who have both made such a great contribution to STEM.
It was my pleasure to share a message about the skills required to thrive in the future and provide some guidance about how students can help brand themselves and give themselves a chance to get ahead of the game.
Other presenters included:
Dennis Prior, Department of Human Services;
WiseTech Global;
Adam Smith – Digital Transformation Agency, Australian Government;
Anant Vima, KPMG Technology Advisory;
Lieutenant Paul Coughlan, Aerospace Engineer, Royal Australian Navy; and
Mike Gardiner, Buzzygames
The final Big Day In events for 2019 will be in Melbourne on June 19 and Adelaide on June 20.
We began the day with an overview of a range of Adobe applications that are used by educators and students to enhance digital creativity around the globe. Then we broke into two video workshop sessions focusing on Adobe Spark video then Premiere Rush.
The main resources shared during this event can be found on the Adobe Education Exchange via – http://bit.ly/adobe-CIT19
About 70 teachers from 13 schools registered for the Inject Creativity into the Curriculum with Adobe professional learning event hosted by Ryde Public school on May 29.
One of the highlights of this event were the following hands-on workshops run by Adobe Education Leaders (AELs), Adobe Campus Leaders (ACLs) and Adobe software experts …
InDesign, desktop publishing made simple by Michael Turner (ACL)
Adobe apps in STEM – Brett Kent (AEL)
Photoshop tips & tricks – Bec Smith
Adobe Drawing tools on the iPad – Jane Chen (Adobe Solution Consultant)
Spark Video & Premiere Rush, video production made easy – Tim Kitchen
Comments about highlights (from the feedback) of this event included …
Learning how to use the programs better and how to implement in a Stage one setting
Getting to practise using the character animation program
The STEM tools and tips.
The capabilities of the programs that Adobe has to offer
The overview of all the programs. Looking forward to experimenting with them all!
Seeing all the products – I didn’t know there were so many!
Adobe mobile/iPad apps are great for infants – e.g adobe draw, spark post and spark video
Learning about the new painting app that hasn’t come out yet
Seeing the elements of the apps in action
Learning about the ADOBE CC applications and how they could be used and implemented in a primary school setting.
Choosing a workshop that you were interested in. The small group enabled more attention and ability to ask questions
Loved Adobe Spark, simple tool, easy to use but maximum return for time invested. A new story telling tool!!
Watching a selection of video grow into a great presentation
Learn about use of Photoshop and Premiere Pro with VR
Practical tips in InDesign.
seeing how to create VR with Photoshop
Discovering how I can engage students with presentations without them needing to stand in front of the class- animator.
Learning about 3D virtual reality cameras
Learning about the applications in Adobe
Learning about new programs that can be implemented into the classroom to improve student engagement
Knowing more about photoshop
Creativity!
Tim’s presentation style was excellent.
Learning to make a video on Adobe Spark
Great Presenter, very personable.
Seeing staff have light bulb moments and not being scared of the technology on offer.
I thoroughly enjoyed the drawing tool session with Jane.
Click here to access the main resources shared during this event via the Adobe Education Exchange
On Wednesday May 29, I had the pleasure of working with all the Year 5 & 6 students and teachers from Ryde Public School in Sydney to help enhancing their digital creativity skills with Adobe Spark Video.
Each student was challenged to work with a partner to create a short video story about their passions.
The students shared their stories with each of their classes and the teachers were very exciting by the way the students were so engaged with the software and the activity.
Special thank you to Assistant Principal Mrs Ellen Payne for organising this Adobe Day.
I was invited to run an Adobe Day on May 28 at Redlands focusing on editing 360 degree video for virtual reality with Premiere Pro. Redlands is located on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, in Cremorne and for this event hey organised 90 Year 10 & 11 media students to work with me for the day.
For many of the students, it was their first time working with Premiere Pro to edit video so we began the day with some simple editing techniques. The students picked up the basic skills really quickly, so we move into some more complected techniques such as how to key out a green screen background.
In the afternoon, I provided the students with some 360 degree footage and showed them how to apply their newly found techniques in to creating a virtual reality (VR) story.
They were all given a challenge to create a entertaining 30sec clip to share with everyone. I was very impressed with what they achieved and how much they learned in a day.
Click here if you would like to learn how to edit 360 footage in Premiere Pro
About 400 Year 5 & 6 students from eight Tasmanian schools visited The Hutchins School for a wide range of hands on activities provided by companies and organisation such as Google, Microsoft, Smart, Technology One, Wise Tech Global, The University of Tasmania and of course Adobe.
I’m quoted in the Big Day In Junior website stating the following …
Digital creativity, digital literacy, ICT skill development, design thinking and computation thinking are all fundamental aspects of the Australian Curriculum (AC) and are the essence of what is being fostered during each Big Day In Junior (BDIJ) program around Australia.
Within the AC, Critical and Creative Thinking as well as ICT Capability sit alongside Literacy and Numeracy as core F-10 general capabilities that are expected to be taught and assessed throughout Australia. Central to these general capabilities, is the statement derived from The (2008) Melbourne Declaration on Education Goals for Young Australians, that all young Australians become successful learners – confident and creative individuals – active and informed citizens.
The term multimodal text is found throughout the Australian English Curriculum as well as in other subjects. In the AC, it’s defined as combination of two or more communication modes such as print, image and spoken text, as in film or computer presentations. Examples of multimodal text include slide presentations, animation, book trailers, digital storytelling, live action film making, music videos and various web texts and social media (http://creatingmultimodaltexts.com). The focus of multimodal text in the AC encourages teachers to allow students to use the modern 21st century tools available to them to construct their learning in a multitude of creative ways.
The Digital Technologies Curriculum is based on encouraging students to develop computational thinking skills, a fundamental part of great software development. The BDIJ program provides a number of hands on workshops run by industry and university experts to help students develop their computation thinking skills and learning simple coding operations.
There are also a number of links between the BDIJ and the Media Arts Curriculum. Industry experts from leading digital creativity companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google and Adobe are proud to be involved with the Australian Computer Society Foundation to help provide opportunities for participants in the BDIJ to enhance their digital media and communication skills.
Here is the link to an article I wrote in 2016 following taking part in a BDIJ program titled What schools should be like every day – https://timkitchen.net/2016/12/19/jbdi/
Here is a link to a more recent BDIJ video I made to help support this amazing program that links so well to the AC and provides teachers and students with valuable connections to industry and universities.
The Big Day In came to Hobart, Tasmania on Wednesday 22nd May, 2019. About 400 students from around the state visited the University of Tasmania who hosted this wonderful event.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Rufus Black opened the event and shared with the secondary students about the importance of encouraging students to start up their own tech companies to assure their and Australia’s future.
I was the first of the keynote presenters with the topic, skills to thrive in the future.
Katy Cooper, Founder StartSchool & DisruptiveCo was next with the topic The Driver, The Curator & The Expert – Preparing for the Age of the Individual
Other presenters included:
Dennis Prior, Department of Human Services – Cyber Security & You
James Ewan, ISW – A Software Developer’s Journey
Nick Rudenno, Senior UX Designer, Handbuilt Creative – Passion, Persistence & a Fair Amount of Luck
Dr Paris Buttfield-Addison from Secretlab.com.au & Mars Geldard Paris from Buttfield-Addison
Tasmanian Senator the Hon Eric Abetz also visited for a brief presentation about how both the state and federal government are supporting a range of STEM related activities to encourage students to develop skills in coding and ICT.
Tasmania is such a beautiful part of Australia. It really was a pleasure to be back there again to meet and work with these amazing students, teachers and IT professionals.
On Thursday 16th May, Camberwell South Primary (in Melbourne’s east) hosted a day of digital creativity based around the use of the Adobe Spark apps. This was organised by the school’s STEM Specialist Joel Aarons who is also an Adobe Education Leader.
All the Year 4, 5 & 6 students rotated through three activities based on each of the three Spark apps. Joel ran a workshop on making a webpage with Spark Page, his colleague Liz Hein ran a session based on making digital posters with Spark Post and I showed the students how to make simple videos with Spark Video.
The theme of the Spark Video productions was the student’s passions.
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In the afternoon, the Camberwell South Primary staff took part in a special Adobe professional learning event based on the educational use of the Spark apps to enhance creativity in the classroom.
I would like to thank Joel and Liz for their help this this day.
If anyone is interested in finding out more about how Adobe Spark is making a positive difference in education around the globe, I encourage them to look up https://edex.adobe.com/spark
