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.

The tutorials

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 …

Day 1

Day 2

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.

The slides & resources from my presentation can be found via – https://adobe.ly/keynote16March25

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.

Meridan State College on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast was the venue for an Adobe Express workshop with some of their Year 7 STEM specialists on the afternoon of Tuesday 4th March.

The students were taught a number of video and animation creation techniques and produced some very creative results.

After school, about 30 teachers from around the Sunshine Coast region came to Meridan State College to work through the Adobe Creative Educators Level 1 course.

One of the teachers was a local school principal and his feedback about Adobe Express features this statement …

Adobe Express is an absolute game-changer when it comes to creating stunning visuals and professional-quality content with ease. Whether you’re a seasoned designer or someone who’s never touched design software before, Adobe Express puts the power of Adobe’s creative magic right at your fingertips. With intuitive tools, thousands of beautifully designed templates, and seamless integration with Adobe’s creative ecosystem, it makes everything from social media graphics to logos, flyers, and videos a breeze. Its AI-powered features, quick customisation options, and vast library of fonts, images, and design assets mean you can create polished, eye-catching content in minutes — no stress, just results. Adobe Express isn’t just a design tool; it’s your creative superpower.

I would like to thank Stephen Reid the Head of Innovation, Technology & Interactive Learning at Meridan State College for organising these workshop activities.

Image gallery

Maleny State School is located in the beautiful hinterland inland of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. I had the pleasure of working with their Year 5 & 6 students on the morning of Tuesday 4th March introducing them Adobe Express.

I was very impressed with how quickly they picked up the video and animation features to create short stories.

I would like to thank the wonderful Adrian Greig for all the work he did to make this event happen for his students.

With over 3000 students, Kelvin Grove State College in Brisbane is one of Queensland’s largest government schools and on Monday 3rd March, they hosted an Adobe Day for their year 7 & 8 students with a focus on English & Humanities classes.

Adobe Days usually include a design thinking challenge designed to boost digital literacy, encourage creative problem-solving, promote lifelong learning, and build confidence in innovation. In this instance, students learned to create animated videos using Adobe Express and were inspired to produce short videos on making the world a better place, focusing on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Late in 2024, Education Queensland endorsed Adobe Express as their preferred browser-based design tool and allowed access to all of their students and teachers through their single-sign on school email & password. Since this it has been great to see so many QLD students and teachers using it as a learning & teaching tool.

I would like to thank Sue Isbell for organising this special incursion for many of her student. It was great to spend a day at this very impressive school.

Image gallery

On Tuesday 18th February 2025, over 20 teachers from schools around Sydney, TAFE NSW and ACU visited the Adobe Sydney office to work through the Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) Level 1 & 2 courses.

This was a unique opportunity to complete both micro-credentials in the one afternoon session and join the international ACE community. Being a member of the ACE program, involves receiving curated professional development materials, information about virtual and in-person events, and the opportunity to connect with like-minded educators from around the world.

Click here to find out more about the ACE program.

Feedback highlights from the teachers involved:

• Learning new animation skills in Express. Access to great resources within the courses too!
• Expanding my knowledge of features within Adobe Express and applying these in practical exercises.
• The course was designed to support education
• Well run lesson with very achievable outcomes
• Being able to learn more about the capability of Adobe Express.
• Unpacking the versatility of Adobe Express
• The hands on nature of the session
• Brevity and clarity of what was being taught.

Other feedback:

• Very engaging and well paced! Absolutely perfectly presented!
• Super creative way to engage my students
• Learned a lot in a short time
• Had a fun afternoon of learning
• This is an engaging course that all Technology teachers should attend.
• Fun, engaging and so easy to use

I would like to thank my colleague Al Briggs and Adobe Creative Educator – Leader Martin Gray from Singleton High for helping me run this session.

More opportunities to complete ACE Level 1 & 2 can be found here.

On Thursday 13th February, Macgregor State School in Brisbane hosted an Adobe Day for all 224 of their Year 5 & 6 students.

The challenge that each student had was to access Adobe Express for the first time and use it as tool to create an animation about how to make the world a better place to live.

Following some explicit teaching about the tool, the students produced some great results and were keen to explore more features within Adobe Express. The teachers were very excited about the potential of Adobe Express to help engage the students and foster digital literacy and creativity skills within a range of curriculum areas and activities.

After school, over 50 of the teaching staff at Macgregor took part in a professional learning session that involved doing the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 micro-credential course.

I would like to thank Deputy Principal Gary Davey for organising this Adobe Day at his school and Adobe Creative Educator-Leader Richard Turner-Jones for helping me and many of the students and teachers throughout the day.

Click here to find out more about Adobe Days.

On Wednesday the 12th February 2024, I had the pleasure of working with about 130 Year 7 to 10 students from Bellbird Park State Secondary College near Brisbane.

Late in 2024, the Queensland Education Department allowed Adobe Express to be a part of the single-sign-on system for all of their students and teachers. I had the pleasure of introducing this wonderful application and watching the students work together to make a set of amazing short video animations.

After school, about 25 Bellbird Park teachers worked though the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 micro-credential course with me. It was great to see the excitement in the eyes of the teachers as they discovered the power of Adobe Express to engage students in a wide range of curriculum areas.

I would like to thank STEAM Coordinator Zainab Ali for organising this fabulous day.