My life seems to be a whirl of late which could be a good thing or could be a bad thing. In case you missed it- Adobe have asked me to join Brenda Frisk and Colin Gover from Auckland to be Adobe Educational Leaders and last week I went to Sydney for a couple of days to find out more about what was involved.

I thought I had better get my thoughts about our Adobe meet-up recorded while they are still fresh-ish in my mind. We spent a good deal of time learning about the Adobe family of products. Adobe gave us the entire Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection which was pretty jolly generous if you ask me. I don’t think any one person could know everything about all of the products that are in the package but Soundbooth, Photoshop and Visual Creator are the ones that I would like to focus on. The thing that I like about Soundbooth is the graphical way you can edit annoying sounds that you can see on an audio track- great for podcasting when the bell goes in the middle of a great sound byte. The draw of learning more about Photoshop is obvious and I have a project in mind already. And Visual Communicator is a video editing software that I know that Colin uses for television editing in schools.

Another great outcome of the meet was that Wacom gave us each a Intuos3 tablet to use when we are playing and presenting. It took me a bit of brain exertion to work out that it was not just one enormous track pad and once I was over that I was surprised at how great it was in speeding up my workflow and how much easier it is to use a pen rather than a mouse to move about the screen. I have a friend who is a really good artist and can’t wait to let her play with it and see how she goes.

They also gave us some insider information about the sorts of things that Adobe does and plans for the future which are really exciting. We got to talk to some of the people like Paul Burnett who is a Worldwide Evangelist for Adobe! What a great job title! Just for fun he showed us his Adobe Air app Melissa that he made. Turn the sound down and Melissa sits on your desktop and lip-synchs with you when you talk- aren’t these people so clever. Melissa reminded me a little of Marvin but without all the tricky input code- give her a try- she’s very clever.

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The two days flew by and I was very fortunate to be able to extend my time in Sydney with a quick visit with my cousin and fly home on Sunday which was an added bonus. We only had the one day but we managed a wander round the Opera House and Botanical Gardens.

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I strolled across this little beauty this afternoon- this Be Funky cartooniser makes an outline from your photo and then you colour it and add some cartoon like text- great for a bit of fun or to make an interesting avatar for a Voicethread or for those who are not allowed to put their direct images on the internet.

Here I am in Sydney by the bridge. BTW this is my first post written with the aid of my new Wacom INTUOS 3 tablet that Wacom gave me to play with while I was at the Adobe Summit. I am quickly getting the feel of it and I think it is speeding up my workflow.

I am on a Boeing something or other sitting in cattle class, flying at so many thousand feet above the earth with only Mini-Dylan to keep me company. I am off Sydney for an Adobe Asia/Pacific regional meeting. The whole invite thing only happened a dozen days ago so it was all a bit rushed and ever such a little bit stressful as the tickets arrived by email yesterday lunchtime. Fellow NZ AEL Colin Gover from Auckland isn’t joining me on this one. I shouldn’t say cattle class today as there are only about 30 people in our section of the plane built to hold heaps. If we wanted we could all stretch out and have a lying down nap which I might actually do when my laptop battery runs out.

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Knowing Mini-Dylan’s love of travelling I invited him along this time round instead of having to stow away in my handbag.

Lessons learnt already- Before you try and fill in three hours of flying by playing on your laptop make sure before you leave home that it is fully charged. I will know this one for the trip home.

It was good advice not to buy a 17 inch Mac Book Pro as light is good and my 15 inch sits nicely on the tray table in the plane.

I had a little weep as I left my homeland thinking of how Mum would have loved to know about this trip. I like to think as I write this that she is with me now but it is not the same as her being here. But then I also think that I can go and enjoy myself without looking over my shoulder and worrying about how Mum is faring on her own in New Zealand.

I am feeling a little whakama as regards the Adobe get- together. We are supposed to present a 15 minute number on our favourite Adobe application. Adobe has promised me a wonderful range of software to pick from but none of it has arrived yet so it is a bit hard to pick just one- apart from Photoshop Elements that I got for my old PC that I haven’t fired up in ages. So I went to the net and am going to show the participants Buzzword, ConnectNow and Adobe Photoshop Express which are all on line tools that anyone can access. Anyone with internet access that is. I am not sure how much access we will have during the sessions so I have done a little screen grab with Keynote- not very inspiring though with me saying, “Imagine if you will the power and wonder of the these on line apps that you can’t see.” We live in hope that we will have decent access. I am sure the other people are way more knowledgeable about Adobe apps than me- I feel like a bit of a fraud.

What I hope to get out of the meeting…

Meeting up with a group of like minded types from the Asia/Pacific Region- apart from Chris Betcher I don’t recognise any of the names of other participants. Learning about the sort of products that Adobe has to offer will be magnificent.

Meeting Chris face to face will be a highlight. Chris, Chrissy Hellyer, Simon Evans and I did a hilarious get together via Skype a while back that was podcasted. We were in an irreverent mood at the time and it was lots of laughs. Chris is very skilled with Adobe applications so that will be fun.

In support of Adobe the good folks at Wacom have offered us an Intuos 3 tablet to use with the Adobe software. Getting to grips with this ‘new for me’ technology will a highlight also. Cool bananas- a new toy to keep me going until I can buy my new G3 iPhone on July 11.

I am looking forward to the whole thing. Bring it on.Sydney

Chris Betcher recently blogged about another new Adobe tool- Buzzword- an online word processor written in Flash. Very cool. The features that I particularly like are that you can upload a Word document and it looks just like it does in Word. You can create documents in Buzzword and export as a pdf or a Word document onto your desktop. Ideal for those without the $$$ to spend on Microsoft products. You can insert tables and graphics and do all the usuals that a normal person would want a desktop publisher to do.

Then you can share that document with others just as you might do in Google Docs. But here’s the really cool thing you can do as well. On the far right hand side of the screen you can see the icon- MEET. Thought I would give it a try and find out who I might meet.

Turns out it takes you to Adobe ConnectNow- through which I can share my desktop with others. OK this looks fun but I need someone to share with. Enter Skype and Twitter. Raewyn from school was on Skype and I sent out a general Tweet asking if anyone wanted a little playtime! Colin Warren a educational tertiary level blogger from from Geelong, Australia, answered my call. Together we played and found out pretty much how to work the screen sharing application by talking about it with Skype and sharing the iSite video. The screen capture is of how it looked from my end as Colin opened up his desktop for us to look at. Through this medium we shared photos and movies directly from my desktop.

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I liked the interface and it all worked smoothly after we had played about for a bit trying to get the sound working. We nearly had to resort to using the HELP tab but resisted the temptation.

It is great to have a PLN that is so wiling to try new things and learn with each other across the globe.

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So it’s pretty much official with a visit yesterday from Brenda Frisk from NextSpace in Auckland. I have been invited to be an Adobe Educational Leader and have registered for the Adobe Educational Leader’s Institute in San Francisco. There are 118 others globally so it is quite an honour. We fly out in July for a week of fun, learning and frivolities.

I have been invited to join my fellow AELs at Adobe’s San Francisco office as well as San Francisco State University’s Multimedia Studies Program (MSP) for hands-on work with the latest Adobe technology and open discussions on best practices in teaching and learning with technology.

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At the institute we will:

• Take part in focused instruction on Adobe creative solutions.
• Learn new ideas for integrating digital tools into the curriculum.
• Talk with product managers and provide them with crucial feedback.
• Hear the latest about Adobe technology and what it means for teachers.
• Network and collaborate with fellow AELs on the latest innovations in teaching and learning with technology.

For a small town girl who has only ever been over the Auckland Harbour Bridge once it is a pretty big deal. It would never have happened if I had not opened my classroom walls and let people in through the power of Web2.0- blogging, wikis, podcasting, collaboration, networking and on-line creativity.

I will take you on this journey with me.