The Institute of Industrial Arts Technology Education (IIATE) held its annual state conference last week with a special workshop day on Thursday 19th October at the Adobe office.

IIATEis the key teacher professional association providing professional leadership in the Technology and Engineering Education area for NSW teachers.

Adobe Education Leader Jason Carthew and I ran a day of animation & video production activities for over 40 NSW teachers.

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We introduced many of the teachers to the power of Adobe Animate, Photoshop, After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro and Character Animator.

The NSW Department of Education and Adobe ran a special all day professional learning event today that involved a range of both face to face and online Adobe workshops.

Click here to see an Adobe Spark video summary of the day by NSW educator Irene Clayton @radical_sab

Jo Cohen and Eric Land from the NSW DoE worked hard with the Adobe Education team to put this event together. We invited Adobe Education Leaders Brett Kent & Andrew On Yi Lai to run the face to face workshops and AEL Ross Johnson ran the online workshop for a group of remote NSW teachers.

Jo Cohen introducing the day

Eric Land sharing important information about the ethical use of re-publishing images

I had the opportunity of sharing a keynote on Creativity and Generation Z. My resources for this event can be found via https://bit.ly/adobe-18oct17a

The workshops were based on four areas:

• Mobile – Visual literacy (focusing on a wide range of Adobe iPad apps)
• Web Tools – Presenting information (focusing on the Adobe Spark Tools via a web browser by Andrew On Yi Lai)
• Creative Cloud – literacy (focusing on a range of Adobe Creative Cloud apps by Brett Kent)
• Adobe Spark & Creative Cloud apps were focused on in the online sessions by Ross Johnson

We are looking forward to running more of these events in the future.

The Queensland Society for Information Technology in Education (QSITE) Far North Queensland Conference attracted close to 300 teachers from a range of school sectors in and around Cairns, QLD.

I was delighted to be invited back as a the starting keynote presenter and had the pleasure to share some of Adobe’s research into preparing Generation Z for the future. All my resources for this event can be found on the Adobe Education Exchange via http://bit.ly/adobe-qsite17

It was lovely to re-connect with Educational Psychologist Andrew Fuller who was the other keynote presenter. I have been a follower of Andrew’s amazing work since I was a young teacher in the early 1990s.

I enjoyed presenting a workshop focused on how some of Adobe’s mobile apps can add creativity to classroom experiences.

My workshop was one of about 30 that were provided throughout the day. I really enjoyed one of the iPad workshops run by Apple and learned a lot about features of the the new Apple iOS for the iPad.

Congratulations to Mark Holland, Leigh Howser and the rest of the QSITE Nth QLD Chapter Committee for putting on such a great event.

The opening keynote presenter for the 2017 uLearn conference in Hamilton, New Zealand was Professor Eric Mazur, a physicist and educator at Harvard University. Professor Mazur is also an entrepreneur in the area of technology start-ups for the educational and technology markets and was a pioneer of the current Flipped Learning approach to teaching and learning.

Professor Mazur began his talk with a reflection on his own personal teaching practice at Harvard. Like many educators, especially in the senior secondary and higher education, his teaching of 30 years ago was purely (in his words) a one way transmission of information from teacher to student, with a focus on regurgitating what was already available to his students through their textbooks.

He posed the following question to all of us – is knowledge something that can be transmitted? Then he quickly answered in the negative and pointed out that knowledge needs to be actively constructed by the learner and that most classrooms and lecture theaters are set up for passive observers. He said, students need to do something with the information to turn it into knowledge.

There was a point in his teaching career that he realised that he was not an effective educator and he had to change his teaching practice. This lead to the publication of his book Peer Instruction in 1997 which became a instrumental guide to the Flipped Classroom approach to teaching & learning.

Professor Mazur says that each classroom experience should be about engaging the brain. Yet in many (possibly most) classrooms across the globe, students appear to be just passive receptacles of information and expected to do the engagement (the hard & fun stuff) in their own time.

Mazur’s challenge to all educators is to flip the old model and have the students digest the information in their own time before they come to class then spend the bulk of valuable class time doing, sharing, creating & reflecting.

Professor Mazur said that children are born curious, they can’t not ask why. Yet unfortunately, our global education systems are doing a very good job at turning off curiosity.  He said as students go through the ‘education system’, they just want to know the right answer to pass the test.

To help combat this at Harvard, Professor Mazur worked with a team to produce the award winning Perusall system with an aim to prepare every students in advance for every class so they had the facts and figures prior to meeting with each other and their teachers. This system is still in its early days but is already showing dramatic improvement in students overall learning goals, preparedness for classes and engagement in class.

Here is the info graphic that was produced during the keynote session at uLearn17 with thanks to www.reflectiongraphics.com

This week, I ’ve been traveling around New Zealand’s North Island and I’ve lost count how many people have said Kia ora to me – a Māori language greeting meaning have life and be healthy.

Whenever I’m lucky enough to be in this beautiful part of the world, I am consistently amazed by the beauty of the countryside as well as the respect this country has for its indigenous people.

Even the Air New Zealand tea cup pays respect and reminds its passengers about the rich cultural heritage of this amazing land.

It is a humbling reminder that in Australia, we have a long way to go in terms of building our indigenous connections and respect for our long history.

The annual ACEL conference brings together school leaders from around Australia and the APAC region to be inspired by other leaders and education researchers. The theme for this year was Respect the Past, Lead the Present, Secure the Future.

In opening the conference, NSW Premiere the Hon Gladys Berejiklian MP shared about the value of education for our future growth as a country.

The first keynote speaker was a former Captain in the US Navy. David Marquet is now a leadership expert and the author of the book Turn the Ship Around. He was very entertaining with lots of military anecdotes themed with a compelling  argument for the importance of wise delegation and shared leadership in organizations.

The other keynote that stood out for me was Professor Kirsti Lonka, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland. She gave us an interesting insight into the education system in Finland.

Interesting points:

• The language of Finnish is about 3000 year old
• In the 1600s, Finnish people needed to be able to read the New Testament in order to be married. No wonder literacy is so popular in Finland
• Getting into an teaching course is harder than getting into Medicine
• Primary teachers usually stay with the same group of students for multiple years, therefore become a very significant adult in their lives.
• Music, Art, Handcraft & Sport are all vital parts of primary education along with literacy & numeracy
• Education in Finland is free, paid for by the tax payer
• Students don’t wear a uniform, it restricts play which is a fundamental source of creativity and therefore a fundamental aspect of the Finnish education system
• Standardised testing only happens once for Finnish students
• Students are dependent on ICT and schools are slowly accepting that the students personal digital device are a vital learning & communication tool
• The key to personal mobile devices is to teach students to use them wisely

The Finnish education system is often put on a pedestal but it looks like they have many of the issues faced by most western systems.  It was pleasing to hear Professor Lonka talking about the leading way Australian schools are using ICT. We have a lot to learn from each other.

About 2000 teachers from across Australia (and internationally) have been in Melbourne this week for the 2017 EduChange event at the Royal Exhibition building.

Congratulations to Dave Faulkner, Aaron Tait, Summer Howarth and the eC team for putting together such as a great event.

It was lovely to catch up with Peter Hutton, current Co-Principal of Templestowe College who recently publicly announced his campaign to revolutionise education and scale the amazing results he has been getting at his school by allowing students to take much greater control of their own learning. Note the symbolically revolutionary outfit …

If you would like to support Peter in this quest, fill out the form via this link:

http://edrevolution.hutton.education

Special thank you to QLD Adobe Education Leader Rose Duggan who flew down to Melbourne to be involved in this event and was a great help at the Adobe booth.

The APAC Adobe Education Community Leadership Summit for 2017 was held from 25th to 27th September at the Adobe Sydney office in Darling Harbour. This is the third Summit of its type this year, European event was held in Germany this year and the Nth American Summit was held at the Adobe mother ship headquarters in San Jose, California.

Click here to watch the live recordings.

About 30 Adobe Education Leaders and Adobe Campus Leaders from all over Australia made their way to Darling Harbour Sydney for just over two days of creative presentations, workshops and networking.

The event began with a delightful evening event at the Adobe office…

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The first full day of activities commenced with a welcome and some get to know you activities before we went live to air via Livestream Australia and Wilkar Productions and welcomed other educators from around Asia Pacific and other countries.

Tacy Trowbridge (Adobe’s Global Education Programs Lead) flew to the event from San Francisco and provided us with am overview of Adobe Education Programs.

Matt Neimitz connected in from the US to give us all an Adobe Education Exchange Update.

Dan Haesler, Director of Cut Through Coaching & Consulting was the main keynote presenter. He provided us links between creativity, mindset and authentic engagement.

Day 1 networking images …

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Following Dan, we commenced the first of a series of Creative Catalyst Talks, short presentations aimed at stimulating creative thinking and action for educators.

Click here to watch the live recordings.

Queensland Adobe Education Leader, Larissa Warren kicked off with a presentation titled No Boundaries, the analog/digital classroom.

Adobe Education Leader Kev Lavery presented his CC talk titled Such Content Very Engage, a focus on the effective use of animated gifs.

Adobe Campus Leader Jessica Peade presented the topic Scope and Sequencing-Successful PBL for the Curious Tech Student.

Click here to watch the live recordings.

Adobe Education Leader Andrew On Yi Lai presented his Creative Catalyst Talk next titled Surprise Me focused on engaging, motivating and heightiung the expectations of our students.

It was great to have William & Robyn from Wilkar Productions with us again this year to capture the live feed, record the live sessions and and also record a series of video interviews.

Click here to watch the live recordings.

Between creative catalyst talks, we enjoyed some networking time as well as a set of Adobe workshops. Susan Bell ran an Adobe Spark workshop titled – Creating engaging materials with Spark. Chris Woldhuis ran an Adobe Premiere Pro workshop titled Fast turnaround video editing.

After the lunch break, Susan Bell (one of Australia’s first Adobe Education Leaders) did a CC Talk titled How Adobe Spark revolutionised student engagement at University of Tasmania

Eden Carey, AEL from WA, presented her talk titled iPad apps in the classroom

Click here to watch the live recordings.

We welcomed QLD educator Heath Henwood to our community with his presentation titled Turning Students into Independent Thinkers.

NSW AEL Tim Creighton did his talk titled Creating student pride in your school

We also welcomed Victorian AEL  Max Schleser to the Adobe Education Leadership community with his presentation titled Smartphone Filmmaking – New Trends & Directions

Click here to watch the live recordings.

The next networking session involved workshop options from Max Schleser titled Smartphone Filmmaking & Mobile Social Media Content Production & Chris Betcher titled Adobe Comp to InDesign.

At the end of Day 1, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner cruise on the iconic Sydney Harbour.

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The final day of the Summit commenced with a fresh set of Creative Catalyst Talks. QLD Adobe Campus Leader Juliette Bentley presented her session titled Lifting Words From The Page.

WA ACL Alison Blackwell was welcomed into the community with her CC Talk titled Building Creative Capacity with Murals.

NSW AEL Darcy Moore presented next with his talk titled International Exchanges: Connecting Creatively

And NSW AEL Emeritus Chris Betcher, presented his CC Talk titled Left Brain, meet Right Brain.

Click here to watch the live recordings.

Later in the morning of the final day we met the BuzzyTV Games team who shared how their interactive games solution is becoming very popular in schools across Australia.

JB Tinker from Certiport shared with the educators the value of Adobe Certification.

If you are interested in finding out more information about Adobe Certification, please contact JB Tinker – jb.tinker@pearson.com

That was the end of the live sessions. Click here to watch the recordings.

The afternoon was spent with the BuzzyTV team as well as Adobe Solution Consultants Brian Chau & Jane Chen. Brian ran two workshops on Adobe Character Animator and Jane’s workshops were about Adobe Experience Design (XP).

Special thank you everyone involved in the 2017 APAC Adobe Education Community Leadership Summit. We are looking forward to next year.

On Thursday 7th September, a group of students from Davidson High School visited the Adobe Sydney office for an Adobe day.

Adobe Days are when a group of students work with an Adobe expert to help develop their 21^st century communication and creativity skills. In this case, the focus was on Video literacy with Adobe Premiere Pro.

Some of the students had previously worked with Premiere Pro but, for the majority of these students, this was their first experience with the software.

Adobe Premiere Pro is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of software which is provided by the NSW Department of Education to all their teachers and students. Earlier this year, the Victorian Government followed the lead of NSW and provided the Adobe Creative Cloud to all of its secondary school teachers and students. Most other school and university systems around Australia also have access to the Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Days are a great way to share the value of this amazing creativity software.

During this particular Adobe Day, three of the students and their teacher Jessica Peade were asked to share their experiences with Adobe software to all the Adobe staff throughout Australia & New Zealand during a special meeting. They were also told about the Adobe in Education Active use program and how between January & August in 2017, the program has reached an impact of over 240,000 teachers and students in Australian & New Zealand.

The Adobe staff were pleasantly surprised with the impact Adobe software has been making in education and very impressed with the contribution of the Davidson High School.

Jessica Peade is an Adobe Campus Leader which is a global leadership program for educators who are passionate about working with Adobe applications to enhance creativity in their classrooms.

Earlier this year, at one of the Big Day In events, I met Raymond Ho from 1Scope and we started planning a digital creativity event for some schools in Sydney.

1Scope is a unique company that provides options for students aged 12 to 25 to search and apply for skill building opportunities provided by top companies, start-ups, charities, universities and government organisations.

Raymond organised a group of students from St George Girls High School and Randwick Girls High School to visit the Adobe office in Sydney and rotate through three Adobe based workshops.

Jane Chen & Jason Grant very kindly donated their time on this day. Jane ran a workshop on Adobe Photoshop, Jason show the students a range of Adobe Illustrator techniques and I gave them and introduction to video editing with Adobe Premiere Pro.

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Special thank you to Raymond Ho for organising this day and also thank you to Jane and Jason for sharing their expertise. We are looking forward to partnering with 1Scope again in the future.