Tim Kitchen 10:34 am on August 31, 2014
Tags: Maria Russell

NSW Premier’s Premier’s Adobe ICT Scholarship – 2014

Congratulations to Maria Russell – winner of the 2014 NSW Premier’s Adobe ICT Scholarship.

Maria Russell – winner of the 2014 NSW Premier’s Adobe ICT Scholarship.

On Saturday 30^th August, NSW Premier Mike Baird MP and the NSW Minister of Education Adrian Piccoli MP handed out the annual NSW Premier’s Teacher Scholarships at a special reception event held at the NSW Parliament House.

Maria Russell receiving her NSW Premier’s Adobe ICT Scholarship from NSW Premier Mike Baird & NSW Minister of Education Adrian Piccoli

Maria Russell, a Primary Teacher at Armidale City Public School, was nominated, along with dozens of other passionate educators, for this year’s Adobe Information and Communications Technologies Scholarship. I had the pleasure of reading through all the nominations and being part of the judging panel.

The Adobe scholarship was one of a range of the Premier’s scholarship awards. Each scholarship provided funding for a study tour with an aim to gather information and experiences from experts around the world and bring that knowledge back to enhance teaching and learning in NSW and across Australia.

Maria has a passion for teaching gifted and talented students in rural NSW and aims to use this scholarship to enhance her knowledge and develop programs where students can interconnect and engage with each other through quality learning experiences online with Adobe products. Her study tours aims to look at gifted education and online education in a number of locations to determine practices that may be transferable to the Australian regional and rural context.

Premier Baird made special mention of Maria’s intention during the afternoon reception at the NSW Parliament House.

NSW Premier Mike Baird

I’m looking forward to supporting Maria with this endeavor that will provide rich learning experiences for talented students in rural NSW and will also be a model for rural education throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Maria & Tim with two previous Adobe Scholarship winners Daniel Rattigan (AEL) and Katy Lumkin (AEL)

Part of the Adobe Education team with the NSW Minister of Education

Daniel Rattigan (AEL) with Premier Mike Baird

NSW Teachers are encouraged to apply for the 2015 scholarships

Tim Kitchen 9:39 am on August 31, 2014
Tags: Nick Wakeling, Ron Wilson, Victorian Government Learn Local Awards

Victorian Government – Learn Local Awards 2014

Tim’s Website

On Thursday 28^th August I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 Victorian Government Learn Local Awards Dinner at the St Kilda Town Hall.

Learn Local is an initiative of the Victorian Government’s Adult Community Further Education Board (ACFE) of which my Uncle Ron Wilson is the Deputy Chair.

Ron Wilson – Deputy Chair of ACFE

The Victorian Minister for Higher Education and Skills, The Hon Nick Wakeling MP handed out a number of awards to the very worthy educators and trainers who were nominated by their peers for their outstanding community work.

The Hon Nick Wakeling MP – Minister for Higher Education and Skills

The MC for the night was the very funny and entertaining comedian/actor/musician/trainer (and hypnotherapist) Adam ‘Chicken’ Palmer. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Adam, when he wasn’t on stage, and finding out more about is amazing work and life.

Adam ‘Chicken’ Palmer was the very entertaining MC for the night.

This is the second time I have attended this event and met a number of Victoria’s local education & training heroes who have dedicated much of their time to furthering the opportunities of adults throughout Victoria.

Tim Kitchen 5:06 pm on August 26, 2014
Tags: Adobe Education Leader ( 4 ), Beth O'Malley, Forest Lake State School

Forest Lake QLD Students developing creative thinking

Tim’s Website

Beth O’Malley (AEL) and three Forest Lake Year 11 Photo-Imaging Studies students.

Enhancing creativity in education is fun and easy with the wide variety of Adobe software available to teachers and students.

Beth O’Malley (Adobe Education Leader) and teacher at Forest Lake State School in Queensland explains what has been happening recently at her school …

As part of our agreement with software company Adobe, Forest Lake students have been part of some fabulous learning opportunities to develop creative thinking in and outside of the classroom. Our pathway night showcased some of the talented Photoshop skills our Year 11 Photo-Imaging Studies students have gained. As part of the Adobe Creatives campaign students took portrait photos of our guests at the pathways night and decorated their face with some creative digital artworks.

Forest Lake State School is part of the Schools of Creative Excellence program. More information in this program can be found at

https://timkitchen.net/2014/02/21/qld-soce-launch/

Tim Kitchen 9:29 pm on August 24, 2014

Young ICT Explorers – hits Victoria for the first time

Tim’s Website

Last Saturday, students from all over Victoria visited the SAP Melbourne office on StKilda Rd to have their ICT projects judged at the Young ICT Explorers competition.

It was a pleasure to be on a judging panel with Justin Williams (General Manager, SAP) and Therese Keane (Swinburne University). Together we were delighted to hear from a wide range of students and see the amazing ICT projects they produced for this outstanding competition.

Young ICT Explorers is a non-profit competition, which has been created by SAP to encourage school students to create their best Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related projects.

http://www.youngictexplorers.net.au

It was so great to see these young people learning how to code and use the great creativity software available to them to produce so many innovative projects.

: Justin Williams welcoming students, teachers and parents

: Digital Careers (Federal Government) was a major sponser

: View from SAP Office

: Dr Karsten Schulz, Program Director, Digital Careers

: Greg Miller – VP & GM Global Operations SAP Australia New Zealand

: Beaconhills College Students

: Beaconhills College finalist

: Mt Waverly North Primary School Students

: Doncaster Gardens Primary School

: Belgrave Heights Christian School

: Therese Keane from Swinburne

: Weeroona College Bendigo students

: Ivanhoe Grammar

: Good News Lutheran College

: Justin Williams – GM SAP

: East Doncaster Secondary College

: Caulfied Grammar

Tim Kitchen 11:33 pm on August 18, 2014

ELH Conference 2014

It has been a pleasure to catch up with the ELH (Expanding Learning Horizons) regulars and the many new to this outstanding education conference experience organised so professionally by Computelec for so many years.

http://www2.computelec.com.au/elhschooltech2014

I recall my first ever experience talking to a large group of educators was at ELH 1999 when I was a primary teacher at Carey Baptist Grammar School and a self confessed guru with PowerPoint. How things have changed.

It is always great to hear from Dr Gary Stager (Seymour Papert disciple and internationally recognised ICT in Education guru).

Interesting quotes from Gary’s keyote

“When ideas come to school they seem to loose their power” Seymour Papert

Schools should be in the business of solving problems they don’t know are problems.

Making should permeate the entire school day.

It’s a powerful learning experience to make things, even more powerful to make things work

Computers have been in schools for 35 year, it’s time to take advantage of them

Programming is a really rich thing for kids to learn

The breakout sessions are always high quality at ELH. The contribution from Stephen Harris’ Norther Beaches Christian School team was outstanding.

Steve Collis (Northern Beaches Christian School, NSW ) ‘When Culture Tips’

Gala Dinner – Great Gatsby Theme

: Tim & Tim (from St Leanoards)

: Tim & Danny (from Computelec)

: Meagan Townes (AEL)

: Rolfe Kolbe (future AEL)

: Me & Bruce Dixon

: Hamish Kinsella, Bruce Dixon & Adobe’s very own Marco Pantano

Tim Kitchen 11:47 pm on August 15, 2014
Tags: Chris Betcher, INNOVATE, Kingswood Primary School, Leio Oshima McLaren, Nathan Jones

IGNITE, INNOVATE, INTEGRATE ICT Conference 2014

Tim’s Website

It was a pleasure to be involved with the 2014 IGNITE, INNOVATE, INTEGRATE ICT Conference at Kingswood Primary School in Melbourne.

350 passionate educators sharing how they can do the best possible for their students with today’s amazing communications technologies.

A highlight for me was meeting and sharing some time with young entrepreneur Leio Oshima McLaren, CEO & Founder of AppAppAway (and he is only 15 years old). Just a talented young man from Queensland and a great example of what is possible when education doesn’t get in the way of creativity.

Chris Betcher (Adobe Education Leader & Google Educator from PLC in Sydney) and Nathan Jones (Apple Distinguished Educator from Carey in Melbourne) also keynoted this event.

Chris Betcher (AEL)

Nathan Jones (ADE)

Congratulations to all the staff of Kingswood Primary for hosting and managing such an amazing event for Victorian educators.

Resources from my sessions at this event can be found on the Adobe Education Exchange via this link …

http://bit.ly/kwoodknote14

Tim Kitchen 2:04 pm on August 5, 2014
Tags: Swinburne University ( 3 )

Swinburne Open Day

Tim’ Website

Thank you to everyone at Swinburne University (Melbourne) for such a successful open day last Sunday. Special thanks to Cat Leonard, Swinburne’s Adobe Student Rep who did such a great job engaging with so many perspective Swinburne students and parents.

Also thanks to Matt Davis & Brian Chau, two of Adobe’s finest Solution Consultants, for taking time out of their Sunday to support this day.

It is a pleasure for the Adobe Education team to support such a dynamic place of education and learning.

Swinburne University is one of only a few universities in the southern hemisphere to be selected as part of the prestigious Adobe Partners by Design program.

Tim Kitchen 10:22 am on July 29, 2014

Special day at Lockridge SHS – Perth – Western Australia

Tim’s Website

One of our Western Australian AELs (Adobe Education Leaders), Angela Bartels from Lockridge Senior High School, organised a fabulous opportunity for senior primary students near her school to visit Lockridge and experience what being in secondary school is like for a day – with an Adobe flavour.

Angela Bartels

Here is what she wrote in her newsletter …

All Year 6 and 7 students were given the opportunity to visit Lockridge SHS and experience a day at high school. Students had a curriculum rich and creative day.

Students were provided with the opportunity to decorate cakes, make Avatars in Adobe Photoshop and notepads in Design and Technology. These were just some of the highlights of the day.

Lockridge SHS Specialist Programs, Basketball, Agriculture and Contemporary Music were main features of the day as were the Science experiments run by Mr Chedid.

Lockridge SHS thoroughly enjoyed hosting your Year 6 and 7 students and have produced a digital record of the day, which will very soon be shown at your assembly.

Lockridge SHS has strong affiliations with software giant Adobe and have an Adobe Education Leader on staff ensuring creativity is indeed embedded in the curriculum.

Competitions were run throughout the day and thanks must go to Adobe for providing prizes that provided creative encouragement.

A truly creative day was had by all.

Tim Kitchen 7:11 am on July 23, 2014

AEL Institute 2014

Tim’s Website

The last couple of days at the Adobe Head Office in San Jose (California) have been some of the most in-depth professional learning I have been involved with in nearly 25 years working in Education.

The 2014 AEL (Adobe Education Leader) Institute along side the Adobe Youth Voices conference, an Un-conference and a Virtual conference live across the globe have been an outstanding combination.

Here is a short video that outlines some of the activities and thoughts from participants.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/101406614%5D

Here is Brett Kent’s video story on his time at the AEL Institute.

[vimeo:https://vimeo.com/101890566%5D

These, and other, videos can be found on Adobe’s new vimeo channel CreateEDU TV

Tim Kitchen 2:58 pm on July 21, 2014
Tags: Adobe Education Leader ( 4 )

AEL Institute 2014 Commences

Tim’s Website

The 2015 International AEL (Adobe Education Leader) Institute kicked off tonight at the Hilton Hotel in San Jose, California. Claire Erwin did a great job welcoming not only a range of new AELs, this year we have combined the AEL Institute with a gathering of Adobe Youth Voices leaders and partners.