On Thursday 2nd May, I had the pleasure of being the opening keynote presenter at the Newcastle Big Day In event at the University of Newscastle. About 400 secondary students from a range of government, catholic and independent schools around the Hunter Valley and wider regional NSW joined us for a day of information about a range of potential careers with a focus on IT.

My presentation was based on the skills required to thrive in the future. Other presenters included the wonderful Andrew Balzer from Microsoft as well as representatives from Defence Force Recruiting, WiseTech Global, Westpac, The Australian Signals Directorate and Amazon.

On Wednesday, May 1st, I facilitated the Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) Level 1 course at St Mary’s Catholic College, welcoming 35 dedicated Catholic school teachers from the Newcastle region in NSW.

ACE Level 1 is focused on looking at the importance of fostering creativity in all areas of education. It is also the gateway to the Adobe Creative Educator program which is community program that provides curated professional development materials, information about virtual and in-person events, and the opportunity to connect with like-minded educators from around the world.

The ACE Level 1 program, can be done on-demand at any time via the Adobe Education Exchange but it usually takes about 3 hours to complete. I offer a special localised version in-person and online that can be completed in 90 minutes. To register interest in a coming session, click here.

I was invited to work with all the Year 8 & 9 students at St Mary’s Catholic College in Gateshead (near Newcastle, NSW) on Wed 1st May, 2024.

We focused on safe and ethical Gen AI image creation with Adobe Express and the students learned about the importance of good prompting, how to utilise the resources of Adobe Stock within Adobe Express and why encouraging creativity is so important.

I would like thank Shane Abell for organising this day at his school.

Also a special thank you to for the support of Hayley & Mark – Digital Innovation and learning Education Officers from the from the Maitland/Newcastle Catholic Education Office NSW.

With only a few days notice, St Paul’s Primary (near Newcastle) heard that I was in the area so they organised some time for me to work with their Year 5 & 6 classes and introduce them to Adobe Express.

Using the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals as the main motivation, the students were encouraged to work with a partner to create a short animated promotion of one of the 17 goals.

It was a delight to meet these creative students and see what they were able to achieve with just a few initial instructions. I would like to thank the Principal of St Pauls’ Greg Cumming and this staff as well as Hailey Bertwistle, form the Catholic Education Network for organising this event.

On Tuesday 30th April, I was invited to run the Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) Level 1 course with Pre-Service teaching students as well as a number of academics at UTS (University of Technology Sydney).

I would like to thank Keith Heggart, Director for the Centre for Research on Education in a Digital Society at UTS for organising this opportunity for his students and colleagues.

It is always a delight to be fostering the value of creativity in education.

Feedback highlights:

• Finishing the assessment and feeling fulfilled as I was learning how to use a new program.
• I loved the use of technology and the practice-based nature of the course
• Seeing the generative AI tool create custom images
• Utilising the diverse tools- but more importantly the focus on creativity and its link to critical thinking.
• Great lesson, very engaging, great presenter
• Clear and concise structure, Tim is a clear and engaging presenter.

On Monday, April 29th, I had the privilege of leading an Adobe Express Gen AI workshop for approximately 65 educators from the Sydney North West Region Professional Development network. This network comprises esteemed institutions like Knox Grammar, Barker College, Abbotsleigh, Arden Anglican School, and The King’s School. The workshop centered around exploring ethical and safe options for Gen AI image creation tailored for junior school students, with a specific emphasis on utilising Adobe Express for image and video creation.

For many educators, the workshop served as their first encounter with Adobe Express and an introduction to the responsible utilisation of Gen AI. The discussion emphasised the importance of safe Gen AI practices, particularly within the context of K-12 filtering integrated into Adobe Stock. This ensures that any content produced adheres to ethical standards and is suitable for publication.

We also looked at how to convert a student’s writing into a multimedia production and I left them with this workshop resource to use in their classrooms.

Many of the teachers reflected how excited they were to apply what they learned as soon as they were back in class with their students.

Prior to my session, the wonderful Education Consultant and Gen AI expert Leon Furze presented via live MS Teams link up. I’ve worked on similar events with Leon and read a number of his articles as well as his new book Practical AI Strategies. He is a great presenter and provided lots of great practical advice to help the teachers understand how Gen AI can be safely and effectively managed in the context of a classroom.

Blake Moon (IT Integrator at Knox Grammar), one of the main organisers of the day gave me a quick tour of the Knox Prep Innovation Hub. I was amazing ed the facilities the school has provided, and this was just for the Junior School. I told Blake that the late great Professor Seymour Papert from MIT would be very proud of the work the school is doing to encourage innovation, invention and creativity.

I would like to thank Susanne Floro, (Head of the Knox Grammar Prep School), and Ian Fairhurst (Team Leader of Innovation and Technology at Knox Grammar Prep School) and their team for hosting this event. Also thanks to Jon Dunk (Digital Learning Specialist and Teacher) from Abbotsleigh School for hosting my session.

On Monday 15^th April, I was honoured to be part of a wonderful panel of presenters at a staff professional learning day at St Michael’s Grammar School in Melbourne. The focus of this session was the Future of Schooling and the other panelist included:

• Dr Glenn Savage (University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education)                  
• Jayne Johnston (University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education) &
• Diana  Hodgson  (HR Strategic Partners)     

We all seemed to complement each other as we shared thoughts on what the school of the future should look like.

I connected Professor Seymour Papert’s 8 big ideas behind his constructionism learning theory as a framework for thinking about how schooling should be done now and in the future. Click here to see my slides.

This event was organised by Ross Phillips, St Michael’s Associate Head – Research, Innovation & Professional Practice.

On Friday 12th April I met just about every careers advisor employed by the Singapore Ministry of Education and shared some of the research around skills that we should be encouraging students to foster to best prepare them for the future workplace.

The title of the presentation was Creativity in a Gen AI World and we looked at some the work of Professor Seymour Papert and Sir Ken Robinson. We also looked at the research from the World Economic Forum form 2016 to 2023 where they rated the most important skills to thrive in the future.

The importance of enhancing creativity skills was a big part of the presentation. We looked at the different types of creativity and how empowering students to engage in the creative process enhances their involvement in the learning journey, making them more able to understand concepts.

One of the interactive activities we did was to create a word cloud that highlighted what words best describe creativity.

The Q&A session led by Amin after the presentation opened up some interesting discussions about how creativity can apply to the current education system.

I announced that I will be back in August for a series of student engagements where 10 lucky students from each school will be able to visit the Adobe Singapore office to work with me to help them create a great looking resume with Adobe Express.

I would like to thank Sara V, Amin Morni, Melisa Lim, Xin Er Lee & Hui Shan Peha from the Singapore Ministry of Education as well as my colleagues Titu Minas and Sue Ho for organising this opportunity.

I’m looking forward to being back in August.

On Thursday the 11th of April I had the pleasure of speaking to about 400 IT students and teachers at Singapore’s Institute of Technical Education (ITE) about skills required to thrive in the future.

The mission of ITE is to Create Opportunities for Students and Adult Learners to Acquire Skills, Knowledge and Values for Employability and Lifelong Learning. The attendees comprised first-year IT students, delving into diverse disciplines encompassing Cybersecurity, App Development, Game Design, and beyond. Among the session’s focal points was the recognition of Creativity as a coveted skill not only within the IT sector but across various industries.

All ITE students and teachers are equipped with access to the Adobe Creative Cloud, empowering them to augment their digital literacy and foster creativity. I encouraged them to seize this opportunity to familiarise themselves with these tools while they’re freely available, cultivating skills in digital content creation essential for their future career pursuits.

I would like to thank Daniel Choo from ITE and my colleague Sue Ho who helped to put this event together. It has been great to be back in Singapore.

I had the pleasure of doing an Adobe Day with the Year 6 classes at Kardinia International College in Geelong, Victoria on Monday 25th March, 2024.

Kardinia is an IB school, which means it follows the International Baccalaureate curriculum. The PYP (Primary Years Program) focuses on nurturing young minds through inquiry-based learning, encouraging students to explore, question, and understand the world around them. Critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and creativity is at the heart of Kardina and all of these skills were on display during this Adobe Day.

The aim of this Adobe Day was to have the students work in small groups to create a 1-minute promotional video for one of the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals using Adobe Express.

Rather than filming individual students, the groups were asked to use the Animate from audio feature within Adobe Express to get digital puppets to do the bulk of the presenting.

I was very impressed with how the groups worked so well together to get the project completed in time for the showcase at the end of the day. It was obvious that the Kardina teachers had spent a lot of time and care teaching the student how to collaborate and problem solve.

Each group created a script for their production then proceeded to record each section of the script using an Adobe Express character. Then they worked through the process of adding video content, still images, music as well as other elements found within the Adobe Express access to the K-12 friendly version of Adobe Stock.

Considering the students has not used Adobe Express before, what they produced in such a short time frame was outstanding. Have a looks at some of the samples below.

After school, all the Junior School staff as well as some members of the Senior School joined me for a professional learning session focused on getting to know some of the tools they had within the Adobe Creative Cloud set of applications, with a focus on Adobe Express.

Feedback highlights included:

• Being able to play and trial things ourselves during the session.
• Staff engagement
• How engaging the presenter was and incorporating staff in the presentation.
• Creating after each demo.
• Hands on learning
• Learning about Adobe Express and all of its incredible potential for our students
• Adding music to the video
• The free pens for volunteering
• The ease with which backgrounds could be removed and film making
• Watching students engage with the product and share their knowledge
• Getting up and having a go. Helps me connect to how children might feel when using something new.
• Learning about character animator as I can see where it can be applied for year 10 media immediately.

Other comments:

• Great session.. have ideas forming for curriculum content.
• I would love to learn more specific to my learning age group
• Thanks for an amazing day Tim!

I would like to thank Aisha Kristiansen (Head of Innovation & Technology K-12), Matt Baron (Head of Junior School) and all the Year 6 teachers for helping to make this day such a success.

Have a look at some samples of what the students produced …

This year’s two 2024 Sydney Big Day In events involved over 1000 students from a wide range of NSW schools on March 20 & 21 at University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

The Big Day In is a series of events around the country run by the Australian Computer Society Foundation that encourage students to consider a career in STEM.

I had the privilege of being the opening keynote presenter for both days and sharing some of the research around the skills that are required to thrive and establish a career in STEM and many other industry areas. We also ran a special Adobe Express activity that involved the students creating an image with the Gen AI Adobe Firefly capabilities of their dream job.

Professor Vicki Chen, Provost & Senior Vice-President, UTS and Dr Ian Oppermann, Industry Professor both set the scene and welcomed the students on both days. Other key presenters included:

• Valessa Basic (Australian Signals Directorate)
• Naomi Perera (Google)
• Mark Flanagan (Animal Logic)
• Aeesha Bello, Holly Craig & Jack McCowan (Wisetech Global)
• Dan Bowen (Microsoft)
• Lieutenant Bridget Free (Defence Force Recruiting)
  

More information about day 1 can be found here and day 2 here.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the ANZ Adobe Edu Team Kaitlin Hartley and Molly Turner for helping me at the Adobe stand and being such great photographers.

On Wednesday, 13 March 2024, I had the pleasure of running an Adobe Day, as well as an Adobe Creative Educator level 1 course to the students and teaches at Matthew Flinders Anglican College on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

The school provides the Adobe Creative Cloud set of applications to its students and teachers, so it was a delight to be able to share the value of these tools and how they can be used to enhance teaching and learning.

Many students showed keen interest in Adobe Express, a user-friendly browser-based tool for designing videos, animations, and more. Throughout the day, I collaborated with various classes, seamlessly incorporating Adobe Express, Adobe Character Animator, and Photoshop into their ongoing projects. Witnessing the numerous “aha” moments among students as they discovered the creative potential of these tools was truly gratifying.

After school, I ran the Adobe Creative Educator level 1 course with about 36 Teacher. This course is a mix of the theory of why creativity is important in education as well as some practical applications using Adobe Express.

According to the feedback, highlights of this session included:

• Everything
• Learning about the 4 C’s of creativity, the ease of using Adobe Express
• Animation and AI aspects of Adobe
• Realising how much the students can create through this. And also making me realise how much I want to get creative myself.
• Voice to animation
• Others coming up and doing some things – hilarious
• All of it!
• Learning creativity
• Great presentation – thank you so much for coming in person.
• Understanding the types of creativity and the hands on nature of creativity the webpage.
• Creating a webpage
• Using AI to create
• The highlight of the event was looking at the credentials of an image, in particular where the image is being created from and the date of its origin.
• Sharing links

Other comments

• Fabulous
• Engaging and feeling inspired
• Loved today’s session. Can’t wait to implement some of these things into the classroom
• I enjoyed the networking with other Adobe creative educators.

I would like to thank, Chris Topp (Technology Services and Innovation Manager) and his team organising this special day at his school.

On Tuesday, 12th March, I had the pleasure of being the opening keynote speaker at the Big Day In event on the Sunshine Coast.

Hosted by the Australian Computer Society Foundation, the Big Day In is a series of events around Australia to encourage students to consider a future career in the Information Technology industry.

About 400 students from a range of Queensland schools were involved in this event.

This year, Data#3 is helping Adobe with a number of Big Day in events around Australia. It was lovely to have Isabel Grisales from Data#3 support the Adobe stand and promote a special activity where students were encouraged to use Adobe Express to depict their dream job.

Here are a couple of the images they came up with …

On Thursday 22nd February I had the honour of being a guest presenter for a webinar targeting teachers in India. We used MS Teams and linked it to YouTube Live and when we got started, the numbers of participants max out on Teams at 1,183 before a notification said that the total participants is too high to measure. It turns out that nearly 5000 Indian teachers watched live and we are currently well over 3000 who have watched the recording so far. This is expected to get higher as over 30,000 registered for the event.

Here is the YouTube link to what was recorded starting with my session …

There is a lot of interest in Adobe Express in India and my colleagues in the Indian Adobe Edu team Garima Babbar, Jasmeet Kaur Kang and their team are doing an amazing job raising awareness.

If you are looking for quick Adobe Express tutorials for teachers and students, click here.

It was a pleasure to spend Monday 26th Feb, 2004 with a number of RMIT Adobe coaches at the start of their orientation week. The main mission was to share with new students that RMIT is an Adobe Creative Campus which provides all students & teachers full access to all the applications within the Adobe Creative Cloud.

The main activity we had for the new RMIT students was to use Adobe Express to create a sticker that featured their own image. The stickers were printed out and the students loved working with Adobe Express.

On Tuesday 20th Feb, 2024 I had the pleasure of guiding a class of Student Teachers from RMIT through the Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) Level 1 micro-credential course on the Adobe Education Exchange.

Thembi Mason, Lecturer at the RMIT School of Education did the course with me last year and organised for her students to get this qualification.

ACE Level 1 is all about the importance of creativity in education. It features content from leading international experts, as well as a practical component involving each participant creating an online journal and poster using Adobe Express.

Now that these budding teachers have gained this knowledge and developed some new Adobe Express skills, they will be able to apply & share them when they are in charge of their own classrooms.

If you are interested in doing this course, or if you have completed Level 1 and want to move up to Level 2, click here to see the next opportunity.

Check out this short Adobe Express tutorial on how to make video introductions with a digital puppet …

The first of Adobe Wednesday Webinar series was recorded this week focused on making video with Adobe Express.

Find out more about Wednesday Webinars

Do the Adobe Creative Educator courses

Find out what teachers are saying about Adobe Express

I was delighted to be invited by VINE (Victorian ICT Network for Education) to speak about Adobe’s AI capabilities with the Creative Cloud apps that students and teachers are using around the globe. This seminar was held at the amazing Camberwell Grammar School in Melbourne.

I shared the plethora of Adobe Sensei and Firefly tools now available within a range of Adobe tools. This video provides a snapshot of many of them …

It was great to get some of the audience involved helping me demonstrate Character Animator & Adobe Express. The full set of slides & resources I shared can be found here.

I introduced many of them to the Content Authenticity Initiative and there was a lot of positive feedback about how Adobe’s Gen AI is based on Adobe Stock and when students access via Express, they get a K-12 friendly version. The ethical and safe use of AI is an important topic of conversation in schools these days.

The annual NSW Department of Education Game Changer Challenge is a design thinking challenge that involves over 3000 students and 400 teachers throughout the state. The Grand Final was held at the NSW DoE headquarters in Parramatta and involved 17 primary schools and 7 secondary schools, some of whom flew into Sydney from various regional parts of NSW.

The Game Changer Challenge uses the design thinking process to help students solve a real world, wicked problem. This year’s challenge was to …

“Invent or innovate
something that will
change our world and
leave a lasting impact.”

Inspired by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 9

More than 40% of students participating represent regional and rural areas of NSW.

Adobe was invited to help mentor the students and help them with their designs and their solutions. A number of the groups chose to use Adobe XD to create mobile app prototypes and Adobe Express to generate video, audio and other multimedia content.

On Monday 6th November I had the pleasure of being invited to run an Adobe at Chatswood High School in Sydney. With close to 2000 students, it is one of the largest state schools in New South Wales.

Briona Gill, Soundhouse Manager at Chatswood High organsied a full program of activities for a range of Year 7 & 8 classes. The school is very lucky to have a Soundhouse to help enhance their music program. I was in ore looking around the room and reminisced about my early teaching years as music educator.

The Adobe Day sessions involved using the Gen AI Text to Image feature within Adobe Express to create an image and turn it into a short video production. We also looked at how to use Adobe Character Animator for some simple 2D animations that can help enhance any production.

The following day a number of Chatswood teachers from a range of curriculum areas joined me for the Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 micro-credential course.

I would like to thank Briona for organising this special day for her school.

On Thursday 26th October Hampton Primary School in Melbourne hosted an Big Day In Junior.

The Adobe Computer Society, Latrobe University, RMIT, MindFlight, National Australian Bank, Solar Buddies, The Australia Signals Directorate and Adobe were all involved running sessions for Year 5 & 6 students at Hampton and Elsternwick Primary Schools.

The Adobe sessions involved working with Adobe Premiere Rush on the students iPads to film, edit and share a story about what the they love the most in the whole wide world.

We focused on the key skills of Problem Solving, Collaboration and Creativity.

The students worked in pairs to film themselves with the Premiere Rush camera sharing what they love most.

Following some instructions, the students put together their stories with titles and audio assets.

For most of the students, this was an introduction to Premiere Rush and for many of the an introduction to Adobe. Many of the Year 6 students were very excited to hear that they would be getting access to the full Adobe Creative Cloud if they attend a government school in Year 7.

The annual Adobe Max conference is world’s largest digital creativity event. This year it involved about ten thousand creatives (in-person) in Los Angeles and hundreds and thousands watching the live and on-demand stream around the planet.

Keynote & demo highlights

In his opening keynote address, Adobe’s CEO, Chairman and Present Shantanu Narayen spoke about how creativity fuels the digital economy. He said,

Our lives are becoming increasingly digital and we are turning to creative differentiation to help us stand out as well as make choices. People are creating more than ever before, flooding every surface, every channel and every medium with their creativity … Digital is transforming every aspect of our lives and how we engage with the world’s information. Artificial Intelligence is accelerating this shift and offers the promise and potential to make us even more creative, even more productive and more successful.

Artificial intelligence, with a focus on Adobe Firefly, was a key theme of Max 2023. Narayen announced that since Firefly was launched 6 months ago, users have generated over 3 billion images. The new Adobe Express was also spotlighted among a record number of new products that have been launched this year by Adobe.

Narayen shared Adobe’s mission, to change the world through personalised digital experiences. He said,

We want to empower everyone anywhere to imagine, create and deliver the best digital experiences … Whether you are a creative pro or a beginner, we’re focused on giving you new playgrounds for exploration as well as ideation. We want to help you harness Adobe magic as this creative co-pilot to unlock new forms of artistry.

In relation to AI, Narayen said that he firmly believes that it will never replace human ingenuity.

Watch the full address here …

Following Narayen’s address, there was a video that showed Photoshop artists from around the world (including Australia) discover Firefly’s new generative fill tool in Photoshop for the first time. Check it out …

David Wadhwani

David Wadhwani, Adobe’s President of the Digital Media business emphasied four key aspects of Adobe Firefly:

• Deeply integrated into our tools
• Designed to be commercially safe
• Transparent with training data
• Support for Content Credentials

He highlighted the importance of the Content Authenticity Initiative which now has almost 2000 members and he said that Firefly, thanks to its seamless integration with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Adobe Express, stands as the most rapidly embraced innovation Adobe has introduced to its suite of tools.

Watch David Wadhwani’s full address here …

Ashley Still

Ashley Still took to the stage and said that Adobe believes that creativity is a uniquely human trait and that AI is a tool for creatives to use to help enhance their work. She said that;

With Firefly at the core of Creative Cloud, you can streamline tasks and break the boundaries of your imagination across every creative medium.

Digital artist Anna McNaught did an amazing demo on Firefly integration with Photoshop. Watch it here …

Ashley Still highlighted the many new features to Photoshop that were added in 2023.

She also highlighted the recent launch of Photoshop on the Web (which also features Firefly tools such as generative fill and generative expand) and she shared a clip that outlines what is new in Lightroom.

Danielle Morimoto provided a demo on the latest features that are coming to Adobe Illustrator. Have a look at her demo …

Dacia Saenz shared some of the latest features of Premiere Pro such as enhanced speech and text based editing. Check them out …

Scott Belsky (Adobe’s EVP for Design & Emerging Products) then hosted a segment on the new re-imagined Adobe Express.

Paul Trani demonstrated the new integration features between Adobe Express, Photoshop & Illustrator. Here is that demo …

Katrina Torrijos (Adobe Express Evangelist) demonstrated the social media sharing side of Adobe Express …

Katrina also demonstrated the new Text to Template feature …

Adobe Sneaks

Danielle Morimoto with celebrity guest Adam Devine hosted this year’s Adobe Sneaks which is all about showcase new technologies that Adobe engineers are working on that may or may not end up as a future product or product feature.

Project Fast Fill

Gabriel Huang

Project Draw and Delight

Souymodip Chakraborty

Project Neo Sneak

Inigo Quilez Les

Project Scene Change

Zhan Xu

Project Primrose

Christine Dierk

Project Glyph Ease

Difan Liu

Project Poseable

Yi Zhou

Project Res Up

Yang Zhou

Project Dub Dub Dub

Zeyu Jin

Project See Though

Eric Kee

Project Stardust

Aya Philémon

Here are some of my favourite non-keynote Max Sessions so far …

Rebecca Hare – Three Simple Teaching Shifts That Unlock Student Creativity – VS202

Click here

About this session

With the avalanche of new challenges, new technologies, and new ways of communicating, we all need creative skills to thrive amid change. How can we best prepare our students for their future? Join Rebecca Hare, education community manager at Adobe, as she addresses the changing landscape and offers three techniques to unlock student creativity.

In this session, you’ll:

• Reframe what matters when creating
• Support your students’ unique vision and voice
• Help them reflect on their journey of growth

Creating the Future, Drawing from the Past – VS818

Click here

About this session

This session features two artists who draw from a deep well of cultural heritage to celebrate the adaptability and resilience of the human spirit in creating art that bridges the digital divide.

Sougwen Chung, Canadian-born, Chinese-raised artist known for innovative and interdisciplinary work that explores the interaction between humans, technology, and art. Sougwen developed the use of robots as nonhuman collaborators to create mesmerizing and intricate visual compositions.

Dylan Mooney is a proud Yuwi, Torres Strait, and South Sea Islander artist from North Queensland. Working across painting, printmaking, digital illustration, and drawing, he vividly brings to life the rich cultural tapestry of his heritage, deeply influenced by history, culture, and family. Despite being legally blind, Dylan’s mastery of digital media allows him to create high-impact illustrations teeming with bright, saturated colors that express his political energy and keen insights. 

On Wednesday 11th October I had the pleasure to be invited to Fitzroy High School in Melbourne for an Adobe Day. Throughout the day I worked with all the Year 7 & 8 students and introduced them to Adobe Character Animator and Premiere Rush.

The Victorian Department of Education and Training (Vic DET) provides Adobe Creative Cloud applications to all of their secondary students and teachers. This means that individual schools don’t have to worry about finding the budget to provide this vital creativity software. The same centeralised distribution management is found in the New South Wales Department of Education (NSW DoE). Both Vic DET & NSW DoE are listed in the worlds largest K-12 education systems so having this sort of access to the world’s best digital creativity software is a wonderful benefit for all their students and teachers.

In a video interview with Allan Barnes from Fitzroy High School he said,

It’s great that the Department of Education have partnered with Adobe to make these product free for students. They just use their school email address and they can download all the apps and learn to use them while they are at school and then use them at TAFE or university or when they get a job.

I would like to thank Allan for organising this event.

Broadcasting live from the Haileybury City Campus in Melbourne, approximately 500 educators devoted a portion of their school vacation to gain inspiration from a lineup of 20 dedicated online presenters from around Australia & beyond during the 2023 ANZ Adobe Education Summit.

Summit highlights

Summit welcome & introductions

With Dr Tim Kitchen & Abby Nelson from Adobe

__________

Interview with Craig Nicholls (Melbourne Girls Grammar) & Martin Gray (NSW DoE)

How and why they use Adobe apps at their schools.

__________

Overview of the Adobe Creative Cloud

A quick look at the various categories of Adobe apps in the Creative Cloud as seen though https://creativecloud.adobe.com/

__________

Interview with Joel Aarons (Vic DET) and Drew Mayhills (WA)

__________

Adobe Express – Gen AI (FireFly), Animate from Audio & Multimedia Editor demo

__________

Interview with Greg Stewart (NSW DoE) and case study from Buronga Public School

__________

Interview with MJ & Nikki Raatz (Education QLD) – (this chapter starts with a case study from Chaffey SC in Mildura, Vic and Canley Vale High, NSW) jump to the 6:27 min mark for the interview.

__________

Making newsletters, portfolios and other digital resources with Adobe Express by Mark Christie (NT DoE).

__________

Interview with Nalin Naidoo (QLD DoE) and Eric Drew (Adobe)

__________

AI in Education with Michelle Dennis (Haileybury)

__________

Documenting Art and Culture: Mobile Storytelling in Malaysia with Associate Professor Max Schleser

__________

Interview with Giovanna Iannicelli (SA) & Eden Carey (WA)

__________

Pre-Summit sessions

Welcome & introduction

__________

Interview with Rebecca Hare – Adobe Global Edu Community Manager

__________

Interview with Diana Peterson – Head of the Adobe Education Exchange

__________

Interview with Emily Chesbrough from the Adobe Express K-12 Product Team

__________

Interview with Ben Forta – Adobe Senior Director Education Initiatives

__________

Interview with MJ Raatz (Commonwealth Bank Teacher Award)

__________

Classroom Success Story – Brett Kent

__________

Classroom Success Story – Ben Eyles (Wodonga TAFE)

Scrub to 2:54 to avoid some of connection issues we had when introducing Ben

__________

Interview with Michelle Dennis

__________

Classroom Success Story with Michael West (NSW DoE)

__________

Classroom Success Story – Jason Lane (Villanona College, QLD)

more to come …

Adobe has partnered with India’s Ministry of Education to provide Adobe Express access to 20 million students and 500,000 educators across India.

The partnership was announced at a signing ceremony led by Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Honourable Minister of Education, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India, during the G-20 Leaders’ Summit in India.

Adobe Express is continuing to empower and inspire the next generation of creators, marketers, data scientists and business leaders, enabling them to first succeed in school, and then enter the workforce with competitive advantages.

When making this announcement, India’s Minister of Education said, In the time of digitisation, new ideas, new innovation and creativity, this partnership is going to create a new standard and benchmark for students … I congratulate the entire education ecosystem for having a collaborative MoU with an important multinational and global company, who with its knowledge and capacity will go beyond.

Adobe’s India VP & MD Prativa Mohapatra said, Digital and creative literacy are foundational skills in bringing ideas to life. At Adobe, it is our mission to make our technology accessible to everyone. Over the years, Adobe’s creativity and digital skilling programs have touched the lives of millions of students across India, and we are excited to further our impact with the launch of this new program.

Adobe Express is being used by millions of users globally. The innovations in Express bring the power and precision of Adobe’s popular photo, design, video, document and generative AI tools into a new AI-first, all-in-one editor, making tasks like creating stunning social video content, touching up images, importing, editing and decorating PDFs, designing engaging book reports and resumes, and more.

Find out more about Adobe Express in Education via – https://www.adobe.com/education/express/

Over 700 state school teachers from all over Queensland took part in two busy days of conferencing at the 2023 iEducate Conference on Sept 1 & 12. It was a delight to partner with Data#3 to share the value of Adobe tools in all curriculum areas.

Education QLD’s (EQ) Information and Technologies Branch ran this annual event the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre and attracted teachers, school leaders, ICT coordinators and IT Admin support staff from throughout the state.

Adobe Express was recently opened up to all EQ schools. Sharing this news was a highlight and very pleasing for many of the teachers.

Matt Scholz, EQ teacher at Forest Lake State High School, and Adobe Creative Educator helped me run a number of sessions and did a great job sharing the many advantages of working a range of Adobe tools.

Gallery

Adobe was at the 2023 EduTECH Australia conference on Aug 25 & 25. EduTECH is one of the largest education conferences in the Southern Hemisphere with over 10,000 participants, 500 speakers & 400 exhibitors.

Hundreds of teachers watched about 30 demos by Adobe Education Leaders and Adobe Solution Consultants that were running throughout both days at the Adobe stand in the Expo area.

Manuela Franceschini (Adobe’s Senior Strategic Business Developer – Education Enterprise Offerings) and I presented special Adobe sessions to a mix of educators from a range of sectors.

Hundreds also took part in the special Adobe Spin & Win competition to win Adobe merchandise.

I would like to thank Adobe Education Leaders Michelle Dennis, Jason Lane, MJ Raatz and Adrian Bruch as well a Adobe’s own Anton Rainer-Smith, Kristian Galanti, Brian Chau, Alwyn Hunt, Manuela Franceschini, Abby Nelson and Maddie Quail for all their hard work during this event.

The gallery

On Thursday 17th August, I had the pleasure of running an Adobe workshop at RMIT with a focus on making videos on the phone with Adobe Premiere Rush.

RMIT is an Adobe Creative Campus which means every student and teacher gets access to the Adobe Creative Cloud to enhance their presentation, communication & creativity skills.

Adobe Premiere Rush is a simple to use video editing application that is available for smartphone, tablet as well as laptop/desktop. The advantage of using it in a mobile device is that is links directly with the camera so you can film, edit and share all on the one device.

During this workshop everyone found a partner and filmed each other sharing why they are passionate about the subject they teach. Then we all turned that footage into a story with Premiere Rush.

I would like to thank Claire Dyson from RMIT and Abby Nelson from Adobe for organising this event for RMIT.

On Wednesday 16th August I had the pleasure of visiting Noble Park Secondary College and working with a range of students from from Year 7 to 12 in a range of subject areas.

Adobe Character Animator, Photoshop & Premiere Rush were the three main applications on show and it was delightful to see what the students were able to create.

After school, a number of the teachers joined me for a professional learning session where we looked at a various of Adobe applications and how they can be used in a range of subject areas.

I would like to thank Leading Teacher Annette Beattie and Acting Principal Gavin Ferrier for organising this amazing day of creativity.

It is always a pleasure to collaborate with Dan Bowen from Microsoft and collaboration was one of the key skills (alongside problem solving & creativity) on display when about 50 students from Marsden High School in Sydney visited the Institute of Applied Technology at the amazing TAFE NSW Meadowbank campus on Wednesday 9th August, 2023.

The day involved a number of sprints for the students to achieve in groups of about 4 or 5.

• Choosing a problem to solve
• Learning about how AI works to help solve problems
• Learning Adobe XD & Adobe Express to build a mobile app solution to a problem
• Creating the app prototype
• Showcasing the app

Impressively, the students exhibited excellent teamwork while constructing a diverse range of app solutions. This marked their inaugural experience with Adobe XD and Adobe Express, and numerous participants expressed their eagerness to incorporate these tools into future academic projects and just for fun.

I would like to thank the Adobe team Sasha McQuaid, Kim Burdett & Jerry Wong for all the work they put in to help this event happen. Special thanks to the IAT & TAFE NSW team Ken Wong, Diana Bugarcic, Belinda Fenton and the amazing tech team. Also thank you to the Marsden teachers Reema Sharma, Prem Kimar, Kim Kellen and the team as well as the wonderful Marsden students.

I had the pleasure of presenting at the National Education Summit in Brisbane on Friday, August 4th, 2023. The session was attended by school principals and teachers from Queensland, New South Wales, and New Zealand and was part of the STEM across the curriculum stream.

During the presentation, the main focus was on demonstrating how Adobe Express can be utilised to elevate creativity in various subject areas. Additionally, we explored the incredible capabilities of the Character Animator application. It was an engaging and enriching experience for all attendees.

On Thursday 3rd August, I ran an in-person version of the Adobe Creative Educator (ACE) level 1 course for teachers in the Brisbane area hoisted by TAFE Queensland.

It was delightful help teachers from a range of schools as well as TAFE QLD educators get through level 1 of the Adobe Creative Educator program.

The focus of level 1 is not about Adobe, it’s about the importance of Creativity in Education. About 10 professors and other experts in creativity and education helped Adobe build this course and it’s always a delight to share it with teachers. In this community program teachers receive curated professional development materials, information about virtual and in-person events, and the opportunity to connect with like-minded educators from around the world.

If you are interested in doing ACE Level 1, click here to see when I will be running the next course or do it on-demand via here.

Feedback comments:

Highlights:

• The best part of the Adobe Creative training was the synergy of the amazing presenter and amazing tool (Adobe). Bonus: I had a great time learning together with the attendees and creating our first websites.
• The teacher did a fantastic job by been so clear.
• The entire program.
• Very useful a clear.
• Perfect.
• It was fantastic to know such a great way to help creativity.
• I feel inspired to create a webpage for any level of learning in my classroom.
• Getting to create in Express.
• The AI feature in new Adobe Express.
• Easy to follow instructions.
• Speaker engaging and passionate about his work.
• Dr Kitchen is a passionate, knowledgeable, engaging, well informed presenter. His enthusiasm is infectious and encouraging. Thank you.

Other comments

• Great…want to do the next Level 2 course.
• The session flowed well despite the diversity of abilities and knowledge of the group.
• Tim was great. He taught absolutely beautiful.

A very special thank you to Michelle Roberts from TAFE QLD for organising the venue and logistics.

On Friday 28th July, I was very pleased to run a digital storytelling workshop/presentation at the History Teachers Association of Victoria (HTAV) Conference.

We focused on the creative use of Adobe Character Animator, Premiere Rush and I gave the teachers a preview of the new Adobe Express.

I also shared the Victorian Curriculum version of Adobe Education Exchange teaching resources.

It was a pleasure to be invited back to Canley Vale High School in Western Sydney on Wed 26th July to work with a large range of students and teachers, see some of the amazing work they are doing with Adobe tools and help enhance their digital creativity skills.

Industrial Arts and STEM Teacher Krissa Diamante organised a day filled with learning opportunities. She was very proud to share some of the creative work her students are doing as they make the most of their access to a range of Adobe applications.

After school, I worked with a number of teachers and guided them through the Adobe for Education level 1 micro-credential program.

Earlier in the year, we produced this video story …

On Tuesday 25th July, I had the pleasure of spending some time with students and staff from the amazing Lindfield Learning Village (LLV) in Sydney.

An innovative and forward-thinking public school, LLV was founded on the principles of personalised learning and community engagement. It offers a unique and dynamic approach to education focused on problem based learning. It boasts state-of-the-art facilities and a vibrant learning environment that nurtures creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration among its students. With a strong emphasis on individualised learning plans, students at LLV are encouraged to explore their passions and interests while receiving personalised support from dedicated educators.

Art and multimedia teacher Jessica Peade invited me to work with a number of students with a focus on enriching their multimedia skills with Adobe Character Animator, Premiere Rush and Adobe Express.

At the end of the day, I conducted an Adobe Creative Educator Level 1 course for a number of LLV teachers. It was preaching to the converted when we discussed the research relating to the importance of creativity in education but they appreciated the Adobe related components and discovering more about the digital creativity apps they can use with their students.

I’d like to thank Jessica Peade for organising this Adobe Day at Lindfield Learning Village and I looking forward to returning soon.

On Tues 25th July, 2023 I spoke to the Year 10s at Cumberland High School in north-western Sydney at their Careers Conference.

This was a special day where the students dressed in business attire and met with people from a range of industries to conduct mock interviews.

It was a pleasure to share with them some of the research from the World Economic Forum that outlines key skills to thrive and success in the future. I also gave them a number of practical tips on how to make the most of their free access to Adobe Creative Cloud applications to help brand themselves and build amazing looking resumes.

I would like to thank and congratulate Careers/Transition Adviser Nivanthi Ratnayake for inviting me and organising this wonderful event for her students.

On Thursday 13th July, about 500 secondary school students from around Melbourne visited RMIT’s spectacular The Capital theatre for the 2023 Melbourne Big Day In event.

Big Day In events are run by the Australian Computer Society Foundation and involves representatives from large and small IT related organisations sharing the value of a career in STEM.

I had the honour of being the opening keynote presenter and shared a presentation about the most important skills to thrive in the STEM (and virtually any other industry). One of the most important of these skills is creativity.

I encouraged each student to make the most of the access to Adobe tools that is provided to them by their school so that they can develop their digital creativity skills.

One of the Adobe applications that I showcased was Character Animator, a great tool for making creative animated presentations just by tracking facial movements via a normal web-cam.

Another app/resource I showcased was Adobe’s new generative AI solution FireFly as we discussed the impact AI is having on a range of industries.

My colleague Abigail Nelson and I met with most of the students at the Adobe booth throughout the day and encouraged them to take part in a special competition aimed at sharing their future dream job and the skills required to get there.

For the past 4 years, I have had the pleasure of running online workshops with the Pacific Links Foundation, an organisation focused on providing life skills for Vietnamese students at risk of being trafficked.

I ran 4 workshops over the weekend for about 150 students who were encouraged to use Adobe Express to build a poster about their passions.

Most of the students didn’t speak English, so a translator was provided at each session to help with the instructions.

Adobe Express is a free browser and app-based design tool which ideal for making posters, webpages and video stories. The students were using a mix of laptops and Android tablets/phones to connect and create. It was a challenge for me to teach the browser version & the app version all while being translated, but somehow it worked because the student were very appreciative and produced some wonderful posters.

On Friday 16th June, I had the privilege of presenting two sessions at the National Education Summit at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The first was a workshop/presentation titled Engaging your students in any curriculum area with Adobe. The second was an open theatre session in the Expo area titled Enhancing digital creativity is key to the future classroom.

Throughout the day, I had the opportunity to interact with more than 200 teachers representing various school systems across Australia. Many of them were unfamiliar with the offerings provided by Adobe and were pleasantly surprised to discover the accessibility of the software, which can be easily incorporated into any subject area alongside Adobe’s professional design tools.

It was a pleasure to share the work of Professor Seymour Papert, Sir Ken Robinson, Dr Tim Patston and other researchers as I presented why creativity is such an important focus in all aspects of education and life in general.

Additionally, it was a delight to reconnect with Adobe Education Leaders who were also presenting at the event from Victoria and interstate such as Brett Salakas, Jason Lane and Steven Kolber as well as many of the Aussie EdTECH community.

On Thursday 8th June, Buronga Public School in the Sunraysia region of NSW hosted a series of digital literacy and creativity events for students, teachers and school administrators around the region.

Making the most of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Express for school admin and publication was the focus for admin staff and teachers from five schools in the region who joined me at the start of the day. More teachers from those schools also took part in a special in-person version of the Adobe Creative Educator level 1 course at the end of the day with 15 teachers earning their certification.

In between both teacher sessions, students from Year 3 to 6 at Buronga Public School spent the bulk of the day building passion posters and video stories with Adobe Express.

Special thank you to Greg Stewart (Digital Classroom Officer) and Adam Astill for organising this day of digital creativity and productivity.

Feedback highlights from the teachers included:

• Learning about a new online program.
• Linking adobe to student creativity.
• I made a webpage.
• Tim’s delivery was very engaging!
• Very informative.
• All of it. Great course. Tim was excellent.
• How quick and easy it is to use and I’m excited to work with my students creativity
• Hands on . I created not just watched.
• The fact that I, a technological idiot, created a Web page.
• The assistance given to beginners.
• Creating a web page – I had never done that before.

Other comments

• Very engaging. Never new Adobe was more than PDF
• Thanks- I got so much out of this.

On Wednesday 7th June, I had the pleasure of visiting Chaffey Secondary College in Mildura, North West Victoria for an Adobe Day.

Character Animator, Fresco and Premiere Rush were the three main Adobe applications that were introduced to classes of Year 8 & 10 students from a range of subject areas.

The after school professional learning session involved teachers from schools around the region. Highlights from the feedback included:

• Working with the students during the day and how engaged they were
• Seeing live animation recorded in character animator
• ‘I feel I am able to easily use these programs with my students. It looks so achievable.
• ‘The ease of how to use the programs

Key Learning Area Leader for Arts, Jess Cook did a fabulous job organsing this day in relatively short notice when she discovered I was visiting the area. Thank you Jess!

On Thursday 1st June, a group of talented Visual Communication & Design students from Braybrook College visited the Adobe Melbourne office for a My Career Rules mentoring session organised by the Australian Business Community Network (ABCN).

My Career Rules is a careers awareness program that provides students with the opportunity to prepare questions and interact with a panel of professionals, opening their minds to careers that reflect the current workplace.

The three panelists, Tomas Francis, Kelly Reay and David Huynh were asked some great questions about their careers to date, how they got to where they are and what life is like working at a company like Adobe.

Following the panel session, the students enjoyed a light lunch and Adobe demo focused on discovering the power of Adobe Character Animator and Premiere Rush.

On Wednesday 24th May I had the pleasure of visiting Williamstown High School for an Adobe Day. I spend the morning with various Year 7 & 8 classes at their junior campus introducing them to Adobe Character Animator and Premiere Rush as two very creative applications within the Adobe Creative Cloud that they were not aware of.

In the afternoon I had the pleasure of working with the Year 10 IT students with a focus on Adobe Photoshop and Firefly which is no longer in beta.

After school, a number of teachers from a range of faculty areas joined me for a professional learning event focused on using Adobe tools in any curriculum area.

On Wednesday 17th May, I had the pleasure of addressing all the Year 10 students and running some workshops with HSC multimedia students at Canley Vale High School in Sydney’s west.

The school encourages their students to work with Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, After Effects and Adobe XD. I introduced them to Adobe Express and Character Animator to help add to the mix.

Earlier this year, Krissa Diamante (Industrial Arts & STEM Teacher) contacted me seeking support with the use of Adobe XD. A couple of months later, she sent me sample of their Multimedia students’ Visual Portfolios using Adobe XD. She said,

Students were assigned a task to generate a digital resume/portfolio when looking for employment in the Multimedia Industry. The task involved equipping and challenging students in creating interactive UI elements and functions. I’m extremely impressed and privileged to share these portfolios with you as these students continue to surprise me every time they use Adobe!

The following video feature some of this work and captures a couple of interviews with two of the multimedia teachers.

Have a look at Matt Rae’s article – What is Adobe XD and what is it used for?