Kylie Pearson, the Teacher Librarian and High Ability Practice Leader at Box Hill High School in Melbourne organised an Adobe Day on Tuesday 12th November for me to work with 70 high-ability students from Year 7 to 9 with a focus on video story telling with Adobe Premiere Pro.

The day prior to my visit, the students collected a range of shots from around the school based on a story that they had pre-planned. Most of the student were new to Premiere Pro so I was able to introduced them to some basic editing techniques and open them up to the endless potential of this industry standard application.

It was wonderful to be able to spend a whole day with these talented student and see what they were able to achieve.

After school, I worked with a group of about 20 teachers and guided the through the Adobe Creative Educators Level 1 micro-credential.

Stay tuned for a video story about this event.

Congratulations to all the students and teachers involved in the 2024 NSW Department of Education Game Changer Challenge.

The biggest design challenge thinking challenge in the Southern Hemisphere.

Special congratulations to the winning teams especially Auburn Girls High School & Pacific Palms Public School.

Congratulations Summer Howarth, Dr Alice Dunlop and Brett Salakas for all of their work and enthusiasm making this such a success.

Adobe was very proud to be there to help support such creativity.

Have a look at how popular Adobe Express was at this year’s Game Changer Challenge

Braybrook College in Melbourne’s west was invited by ABCN and Adobe to bring a group of students to the Adobe office in South Melbourne for a My Career Rules program.

Adobe Customer Success Manager Kim Flowers and I were interviewed by the students with an aim to find out more about what it is like to work in the It industry.

The students enjoyed an activity using Adobe Express to find out more about Adobe as a company and also a Character Animator demonstration.

On 24th October, a group of students from Mitchell High School in Sydney’s west visited the Adobe office in Darling Harbour as part of an ABCN My Career Rules program.

The Australian Business Community Network (ABCN) collaborates with Aussie businesses to break down barriers for students from low socio-economic schools by offering structured, workplace-based mentoring programs. These programs are designed to raise aspirations, build essential skills, and expand students’ horizons.

The aim of My Career Rules is to provide students the opportunity to meet and engage with professionals from various industries, expanding their awareness of careers that align with today’s workforce. By bridging classroom learning with real-world work experiences, the program reinforces the importance of the skills and mindsets essential for a successful future career.

It was delight to have Adobe Vice President and Managing Director, ANZ Katrina Troughton involved in this program. Katrina’s involvement provided the students a rare opportunity to engage with a a senior company executive and ask her questions about her career path.

It was lovely to catch up with Michael Turner, the careers advisor at Michell High. Michael has been part of the Adobe Education Leaders program for many years. Last year, he invited me to run the Adobe Creative Educators Level 1 micro-credential course for all the teaching staff at Michell High – click here to see more.

It was also a delight to provide the students with a demonstration about the value of Adobe Express for Education and how it can be used to enhance learning in a range of curriculum areas.

Special thank you to Olivia Yeates from Adobe for coordinating this event, all the Adobe mentors, the ABCN staff, Michael and (most importantly) the students for making this such a successful day.

Kingswood High School in Sydney’s west hosted an Adobe Day on 23rd October 2024. The focus of the day was using Adobe Express to enhance the teaching of English.

Drawing inspiration from the magical worlds of Harry Potter and The Princess Bride, students were tasked with using the Text to Image Generation AI tool in Adobe Express to create an image of an animal. They then featured this creation in a short animated video.

Deputy Principal Simon Szymkow was instrumental in organising this incursion for his school following a visit from some of his students to the Adobe Office earlier in the year as part of the ABCN mentorship program.

Adobe Days are all about helping students and teachers become more aware of the Adobe tools that they have to help enhance engagement and creativity within the teaching and learning process. Adobe Express for Education is a premium version of Adobe Express that all K-12 schools globally can access at no cost. It is browser based as well as mobile-app based, very simple to use and a wonderful introduction to world of digital creativity and productivity that Adobe does so well.

Click here if you you would like to inquire about a potential Adobe Day at your school.

More events and resources from the Adobe Edu team – https://adobeanzedu.com/

The second half of the 4-day 2024 Adobe Educators’ Conference was held at Abbotsleigh Senior School in Sydney on 9th and 10th October.

Dr Catherins Ball’s keynote recording

The first day was exclusively for members of the Adobe Creative Educators Community and involved connecting with the global Adobe Education Team based in the US, Adobe product managers, creative catalyst talks by Brett Kent and Chris Betcher and well as a range of workshop opportunities.

Day 2

Day 2 was the main day with lots more teachers attending and highlights including keynote presenter Dr Catherine Ball, creative catalyst talks by Michelle Dennis & Brett Salakas, Teacher Feature session, a curly questions panel session feature students from Abbostleigh, lots of workshop options and lots more.

Feedback highlights from the Sydney events

• The keynote speaker and hearing from the year 10 Photography and Digital Media students I teach present in the Curly Questions segment.
• Prizes and interactive activities for the bingo were fun to accomplish!
• The presenters were so friendly
• Dr Ball’s presentation
• Keynote speakers
• Learning about the features of Express
• Learning firefly from Craig, Keynotes were so inspirational
• Hands on approach!
• Dr Catherine Ball’s keynote was outstanding
• Presentations by Catherine Ball and Michelle Dennis
• Dr. Catherine Ball
• Express was impressive
• Dr Catherine Ball – guest speaker
• Networking with others and learning new Adobe programs- Firefly, ADOBE Express, Podcast
• The mix of the keynote presentations and how little snippets of using Adobe Express were integrated into the talks.
• What was presented today was relevant, meaningful and easily applicable to my teaching practice.
• Podcast with Brett
• Future of tech. Thanks for a productive day!
• The learning in the breakout sessions and having time to practise
• Hands on opportunities
• The accessibility of Adobe Express and being hands on in diving into it further.
• Learning Adobe Express
• It’s always great to see what the wider creative community are up to.
• Catherine Ball and the workshops with Eric
• Becoming level 1 educator
• Getting new ideas for how to use these products in the classroom
• Really enjoyed the podcast session with Brett Salakas
• Connecting with highly motivated educators from across multiple sectors to enhance digital pedagogy.
• Each workshop was authentic and relevant to various current practices that effectively equip students.
• Mixture of presentations and workshops
• The workshops were excellent. Dr Christine Ball was awesome
• Amazing to see Adobes amazing developments with Express and AI
• Seeing the capability of the software and applications in the classroom
• Bingo Challenge
• The interactive workshops
• ACE Level 1 course and Dr Catherine Ball.
• AI talk!
• Dr Catherine Ball’s presentation was particularly eye opening – thank you!
• The break out sessions were outstanding and I have so many ideas how to integrate Adobe Express in the classroom. I will be sharing this with my team!
• Thank you for hands on practical sessions and paddlet
• Dr Catherine’s presentation was amazing!
• The keynote speakers
• Getting my level 1
• Opportunity to complete the badge
• Dr Catherine Ball was amazing.
• Creativity in the Round: Collaborative Student/Teacher Group Projects in Adobe Express.
• Adobe Express
• How easy it will be to use the Generative A.I. content in Adobe Express with my classes in the future, especially for Video Editing.\
• The supportive presenters Erin Raethke and Ben Eyles in the breakout sessions

Image Gallery Day 1

Image Gallery Day 2

The 2024 Adobe Educators’ Conference involved four days of amazing professional learning focused on the safe and ethical use of Gen AI in any K-12 subject area with Adobe Express.

About 1000 teachers registered for either the in-person or online experience hosted at RMIT in Melbourne on Sept 30 & Oct 1 and at Abbostleigh Senior School in Sydney on Oct 9 & 10.

• 4 days
• 2 cities
• 2 keynotes
• 8 creative catalyst talks
• over 60 workshop options
• over 50 individual presenters
• over 20 support crew

Close to 2000 teachers have accessed the recordings within 2 weeks of them being available.

Here is a summary of the Sydney event …

Melbourne main event recordings

Sydney main event recordings

The four days of the conferencing involved two amazing keynote sessions, eight creative catalyst talks, some Teacher Feature demo sessions, direct online links with the global Adobe Education Team and over 60 workshop options, including the opportunity for teachers to earn the ACE level 1 & 2 badges.

This the 10th year Adobe has been running this event but it was the first time it has been designed as for a large in-person audience.

The Oct 1 & 9 events were exclusively for the Adobe Creative Educators (ACE) Community and were lead by a number of representatives from the ACE-Innovators community around Australia. The ACE community is thriving in ANZ with about 900 new member since the start of 2024.

The Sept 1 & Oct 10 events were the main days of the conference in both cities and open to any teacher and pre-service teacher. The highlights at each of these main events were the keynote presenters, and Dr Catherine Ball (Sydney) and Pip Cleaves (Melbourne). They were both incredibly inspiring, each with a different looks at the influence AI is having on education and the importance of fostering creativity.

The Creative Catalyst Talks by representatives of the ACE – Innovator community were also a highlight at each of the four events.

The ANZ Adobe Education team (Helen Lacey, Tim Kitchen, Molly Turner, Eric Drew, Kim Flowers, Jerry Wong and Kaitlyn Hartley) along with Anna Nakao and Chloe Encarnacion were instrumental in helping to make these conference events a success.

Connecting with the following global Adobe Education team members during the ACE days was also a highlight – Ben Forta, Brian Johnsrud, Mary Cherng, Will Hsiao, Tanya Avrith, Gail Hammler, Ann Kozma, Rebecca Hare & Claudio Zavala Jr.

Recordings of key sessions session are starting to become available via the following links

• Melbourne events
• Sydney events (soon to come)

The raw un-cut main plenary sessions are available to view now via these links:

• Melbourne plenary 1
• Melbourne plenary 2
• Sydney plenary 1
• Sydney plenary 2

Erin Raethke’s summary of the main Oct 10 Sydney event

Feedback highlights from the Sydney events

• The keynote speaker and hearing from the year 10 Photography and Digital Media students I teach present in the Curly Questions segment.
• Prizes and interactive activities for the bingo were fun to accomplish!
• The presenters were so friendly
• Dr Ball’s presentation
• Keynote speakers
• Learning about the features of Express
• Learning firefly from Craig, Keynotes were so inspirational
• Hands on approach!
• Dr Catherine Ball’s keynote was outstanding
• Presentations by Catherine Ball and Michelle Dennis
• Dr. Catherine Ball
• Express was impressive
• Dr Catherine Ball – guest speaker
• Networking with others and learning new Adobe programs- Firefly, ADOBE Express, Podcast
• The mix of the keynote presentations and how little snippets of using Adobe Express were integrated into the talks.
• What was presented today was relevant, meaningful and easily applicable to my teaching practice.
• Podcast with Brett
• Future of tech. Thanks for a productive day!
• The learning in the breakout sessions and having time to practise
• Hands on opportunities
• The accessibility of Adobe Express and being hands on in diving into it further.
• Learning Adobe Express
• It’s always great to see what the wider creative community are up to.
• Catherine Ball and the workshops with Eric
• Becoming level 1 educator
• Getting new ideas for how to use these products in the classroom
• Really enjoyed the podcast session with Brett Salakas
• Connecting with highly motivated educators from across multiple sectors to enhance digital pedagogy.
• Each workshop was authentic and relevant to various current practices that effectively equip students.
• Mixture of presentations and workshops
• The workshops were excellent. Dr Christine Ball was awesome
• Amazing to see Adobes amazing developments with Express and AI
• Seeing the capability of the software and applications in the classroom
• Bingo Challenge
• The interactive workshops
• ACE Level 1 course and Dr Catherine Ball.
• AI talk!
• Dr Catherine Ball’s presentation was particularly eye opening – thank you!
• The break out sessions were outstanding and I have so many ideas how to integrate Adobe Express in the classroom. I will be sharing this with my team!
• Thank you for hands on practical sessions and paddlet
• Dr Catherine’s presentation was amazing!
• The keynote speakers
• Getting my level 1
• Opportunity to complete the badge
• Dr Catherine Ball was amazing.
• Creativity in the Round: Collaborative Student/Teacher Group Projects in Adobe Express.
• Adobe Express
• How easy it will be to use the Generative A.I. content in Adobe Express with my classes in the future, especially for Video Editing.\
• The supportive presenters Erin Raethke and Ben Eyles in the breakout sessions

Feedback highlights from the Melbourne events

• Learning about Adobe products and how to utilise them in multimodal assessment
• The workshops
• Pip Cleaves Keynote was extremely interesting and insightful
• Discussion about AI use in schools
• The keynote speaker Pip
• Learning about Adobe beyond a PDF reader
• Skills which were immediately actionable in the classroom
• Liked the content and activities on AI and Adobe Express.
• Pip Cleaves’ keynote and curly questions
• The event was great with the workshops and q and a.
• I gained a good overview of Adobe product and AI potential
• Curly questions
• The practical learning especially how to construct webpages
• The demos by Drew and Molly were great.
• A key highlight of the conference was its direct relevance to my professional development, particularly in keeping up with the latest AI technology trends. The sessions offered in-depth insights and practical knowledge that not only supported my upskilling but also provided actionable strategies to bring into the classroom, enhancing both personal growth and teaching practice. Similarly, Adobe Express shows great promise as a classroom tool, allowing students to easily create visually engaging projects such as presentations and social media content, fostering creativity, digital literacy, and multimedia storytelling.
• Fantastic that the conference is both free and during holidays so it’s accessible
• A good investment of my time
• The conference was thoroughly engaging, featuring an impressive lineup of speakers who were not only experts in their respective fields but also skilled at delivering complex topics in an accessible and inspiring way. What I appreciated most was the flexibility of the conference format. Whether attending face-to-face or online, the hybrid model ensured that I could fully participate according to my preferences and schedule. This adaptability enhanced my experience, allowing me to connect with thought leaders and peers while gaining the cutting-edge knowledge I sought.

The 2024 Adobe Educators’ Conference kicked off at RMIT in Melbourne on 30th September and 1st October. This was the beginning of a four day conference event in Melbourne and Sydney registered by about 800 teachers for both the in-person and online experience with an aim to empower tomorrow’s creators with Adobe Express and ethically safe generative artificial intelligence.

Professor Simone White, Dean of the School of Education at RMIT officially opened the event prior to an introduction outlining all the conference presentation opportunities.

The first of over 60 (in-person & online) workshop options took place including the following topics:

• Intro to Express with Al Briggs
• New Gen AI features in Photoshop & Illustrator with Craig Daalmeijer-Power
• Adobe Express in the Primary Classroom with Craig Nicholls
• Drawing when you can’t Draw – Engaging the Disengaged with Adobe Fresco with Joel Aarons
• Editing images in Adobe Express – How far can you take it with Ben Eyles
• Creativity in the Round: Collaborative Student/Teacher Group Projects in Adobe Express with Erin Raethke
• Intro to Adobe Express (online) with Eden Carey
• Teaching & learning prompt engineering with Adobe Firefly (online) with Ross Johnson
• Your Voice is Your Superpower! Animate from Audio Projects in Adobe Express (online) with Jason Lane
• Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 course with Eric Drew
• Enhancing writing with Adobe Express with Juliette Bentley
• Multi-modal assessments in Adobe Express with Molly Turner and Craig Daalmeijer-Power
• Making as a teaching and learning methodology in curriculum with Clare Dyson & RMIT Coaches
• Making animated gifs and stickers with Photoshop or Fresco with Kev Lavery
• Create shareable editable branded video (youtube) intros and outros in Adobe Express with Mark Christie
• Introduction to Adobe Express (online) with Jason Lane
• What’s new in Adobe Express for Educators (online) with Rollan Bañez
• Adobe Express Video production workflow (online) with Jason Eddie

The main plenary session commenced with a welcome from RMIT’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education & VP, Professor Sherman Young.

Molly Turner & Eric Drew from the Adobe Education Team acted out the first of two sets of Teacher Features focused on a range of practical uses of Adobe Express for teachers and students.

The first of eight Creative Catalyst Talks over all four days of the conference commenced with Juliette Bentley presenting the topic Beyond the Classroom Walls: Global Collaboration with Adobe Express.

The keynote presenter for the Melbourne conference was Pip Cleaves (Associate Principal – Global Village Learning) with the topic AI in Education – How I see it. How I use it.

Following a break, Mark Christie (Director Digital Initiatives at Department of Education Northern Territory)did the next Creative Catalyst Talk titled Fair Smoothies.

Al Briggs (Adobe’s Strategy Development Manager for Higher Education) hosted a panel session titled Curly Questions involving:

• Dr Timothy Wiley – Lecturer, School of Computing Technologies (RMIT)
• Dr Thembi Mason – Lecturer, School of Education (RMIT)
• Virginia McNab – Masters student at RMIT School of Education
• Juliette Bentley – Classroom teacher and Adobe Creative Educator Innovator, Adobe Education Leader/Master Teacher
• Rob Flavell – President of VINE (Victorian ICT Network for Education) and Director of Digital Transformation at Loreto Toorak
• Mark Christie – Director Digital Initiatives, Department of Education Northern Territory, Adobe Creative Educator – Innovator

The curly questions were:

• Do you think relying on Gen AI for assignments compromises students’ ability to develop critical thinking and creativity?
• In your opinion, what is the most important thing teachers need to know about the safe and ethical use of AI in the classroom?
• Do you worry that Gen AI might replace teachers in the future?
• How do you envision using Gen AI to enhance student learning and engagement in the future, and what challenges do you anticipate?
• With AI already influencing many industries, what would you say to critics who argue that schools are lagging in preparing students for an AI-driven world?
• How important do you think it is for students to learn about Gen AI, and how should schools incorporate this learning into the curriculum?

Day 2

The second of the conference was for members of the Adobe Creative Educator Community.

It commences with a welcome from Associate Professor Clare Dyson from RMIT

Then we connected with the Global Adobe Education team as well as Adobe Product managers in the USA including:

• Ben Forta (Senior Director of Education Initiatives)
• Will Hsiao (Director, Community Engagement)
• Gail Hammer (Education Community Program Manager)
• Mary Cherng (Director of Product, Creative Cloud Education)
• Dr Brian Johnsrud (Director, Education Learning & Advocacy)
• Tanya Avrith (Education Community Manager)
• Claudio Zavala Jr. (Education Evangelist)

The third Creative Catalyst Talk for the conference was run by Craig Daalmeijer-Power (Head Teacher – Photography, Screen & Media / Games Development at TAFE NSW) titled Being creative with purpose.

Associate Professor Max Schleser conducted the next Creative Catalyst Talk titled ImaginAItion

The next part of the day involved the ACEs partnering up for an Adobe Express Collaborative Activity that involved using Adobe Express to create a (no more than) 30 sec video clip that outlines an example of how Adobe Express has been or can be helpful for you and/or your students in the teaching & learning process.

We then had a discussion led by the following presenters and topics …

• Drawing when you can’t Draw – Engaging the Disengaged with Adobe Fresco with Joel Aarons
• New Gen AI features in Photoshop & Illustrator with Craig Daalmeijer-Power
• Editing images in Adobe Express – How far can you take it? with Ben Eyles

Feedback comments

Highlights

• Learning about Adobe products and how to utilise them in multimodal assessment
• The workshops
• Pip Cleaves Keynote was extremely interesting and insightful
• Discussion about AI use in schools
• The keynote speaker Pip
• Learning about Adobe beyond a PDF reader
• Skills which were immediately actionable in the classroom
• Liked the content and activities on AI and Adobe Express.
• Pip Cleaves’ keynote and curly questions
• The event was great with the workshops and q and a.
• I gained a good overview of Adobe product and AI potential
• Curly questions
• The practical learning especially how to construct webpages
• The demos by Drew and Molly were great.
• A key highlight of the conference was its direct relevance to my professional development, particularly in keeping up with the latest AI technology trends. The sessions offered in-depth insights and practical knowledge that not only supported my upskilling but also provided actionable strategies to bring into the classroom, enhancing both personal growth and teaching practice. Similarly, Adobe Express shows great promise as a classroom tool, allowing students to easily create visually engaging projects such as presentations and social media content, fostering creativity, digital literacy, and multimedia storytelling.
• Fantastic that the conference is both free and during holidays so it’s accessible
• A good investment of my time
• The conference was thoroughly engaging, featuring an impressive lineup of speakers who were not only experts in their respective fields but also skilled at delivering complex topics in an accessible and inspiring way. What I appreciated most was the flexibility of the conference format. Whether attending face-to-face or online, the hybrid model ensured that I could fully participate according to my preferences and schedule. This adaptability enhanced my experience, allowing me to connect with thought leaders and peers while gaining the cutting-edge knowledge I sought.

Images from the amazing Ben Eyles

I was invited to represent Adobe at the opening of the National Communication Museum (NCM) in Melbourne on 20th September. The first museum to open in Melbourne for the last 25 years, the NCM is based in a historic 1930s exchange building in Hawthorn adjacent Swinburne University.

NCM offers an inviting environment to explore and discuss complex issues in a rapidly changing technological world. It highlights both the history and the future of the technologies that enable us to communicate and connect with each other with a focus on inclusion and Australian inventors.

One of the highlights of the opening was listen to a keynote presentation by ‘Sophia’ the world’s first robot citizen and the first robot Innovation Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program.

Here are some of the artifacts on display at NCM …

On Thursday 19th September, I was invited by the RMIT College of Busness & Law to present an Adobe Express workshop to help enhance students presentation skills for the RMIT Business Global Innovation Challenge. This was a hybrid event connecting with students from around Victoria and into Vietnam.

The RMIT Business Global Innovation Challenge is all about co-creating with industry to create innovation, sustainable , and scalable solutions that will have a positive impact on the world.

As an Adobe Creative Campus, RMIT has provided full premium access to Adobe Express for all students and teachers.