It is with great sadness that I am sharing this reflection on my friend Mark Christie who lost his life yesterday morning in an ultralight plane crash south-east of Darwin.

I’ve known Mark since 2014 and have seen first-hand (on many occasions) the incredible work he has done with the Northern Territory Department of Education to help demystify education technologies and provide access to all parts of the NT.

Mark was one of the most passionate and creative men I have ever met and had the pleasure to work with. His passion for creativity in education had no bounds. His enthusiasm and love of life was so infectious.

Last July, along with three other educators from Australia, he joined me at the Adobe Head Office in San Jose California for a special education event that involved about 80 teachers from the USA, Australia & Japan. By the end of this three-day event, everyone knew and loved Mark. He was such a great ambassador for his country and his passion for creative EdTech.

I asked him to host this video from the event.

I am so pleased we was able to share his work on the main stage at the Adobe Educators Conference in Melbourne last September. His Creative Catalyst Talk remains a permanent tribute.

Mark leaves behind his wonderful wife Helen and his very talented son Joe. My thoughts and prayers go out to you both and the rest of your family.

Mark also leaves behind hundreds of colleagues and friends who loved him very much. And generations of students who have benefited from his expertise, patients and passion.

Mark will be greatly missed.

Regards

His friend – Tim Kitchen

ABC story from 13th Jan, 2025

My final Adobe Day school visit for 2024 was at Nth Geelong Secondary College on Tuesday 10th December. With Adobe Express now available to all Victorian Department of Education students, the school was keen for some training and support with their staff and students.

Digital Technologies & eLearning specialist Sophia Harris initiated the incursion with an aim to introduce Adobe Express throughout the curriculum in 2025.

A number of the teachers also completes the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 course during an special after school professional learning session.

On Thursday 28th November 2024, I was invited to work with the Year 4 to 6 students from Heathcote East Public School in NSW to help them make the most of their access to Adobe Express.

All NSW Department of Education Students get access to Adobe Express for Education through their school portal.

I challenged the students to work in small groups create a short animated video with Adobe Express about how to make the world a better place that featured the following:

• at least 4 scenes
• at least 3 animated characters
• a voice over recording
• at least one Gen AI image
• at least one video background
• at least one image from Adobe Stock
• a sound track
• lots of creativity

I was so impressed with what they came up with.

Special thank you to Teacher/Librarian Julie Gander for organising this event for her school

On Wednesday 27th November, a group of educators from the ITE Conference spent the day with Jason Eddie and myself learning about a wide range of Adobe products and how they can be used in education.

Jason offered training in a number of Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Animate. I ran the teachers through the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 & 2 courses.

Feedback highlights

• Depth of knowledge of presenters. New generative AI uses
• Understand how easy adobe has become
• Great presentations, content and assistance provided. Informative and engaging. Thanks!
• Depth of knowledge of presenters. New generative AI uses
• Learning that Adobe express is available to everyone for free… And then learning how to use is!
• AI possibilities in Photoshop, Illustrator etc intro projects to get students started with animation.

On Tuesday 26th November, 2024 I had the pleasure to work with all the Year 5 & 6 students at Arden Anglican School. We started by chatting about three really important skills that help people to thrive:

Problem solving

Collaboration

Creativity

Then we applied these three skills by having the students work together in teams to create a short video animation with Adobe Express describing things that could make the world a better place.

Click here for some Adobe Express resources.

The Melbourne Big Day In Junior event on Thursday 14th November 2024 was perfectly timed, taking place just a day after Adobe Express for Education became available to all Victorian Government School students.

The students and teachers from Hampton Primary and East Bentleigh Primary were very excited about the new way they could tell stories through animation, video and text as well as access millions of K-12 friendly Adobe Stock images and other multimedia assets. There were particularly exciting about the Animate characters feature.

They are looking forward to using Adobe Express throughout the curriculum for many years to come to enhance their digital literacy and creativity skills.

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.