Speaker 1: Music Hello Creative Educators. Welcome to this special edition of our live stream show where we are talking about all things Adobe Max. So if you haven't heard of Adobe Max, you're going to hear about it today. If you have been going to Adobe Max or watching it virtually over the past few years, we have some exciting resources that are just for teachers to bring Max to your students. So I am NOT alone, as usual. I'm really lucky to be here today with Jessica Cohn. Let me bring her on. Welcome Jessica. Hi, thanks for having me. Thanks so much for being here. So as a, I guess you've you said you've been watching Adobe Max for the

Speaker 2: past few years, is that right? Yes, I absolutely love Adobe Max. That's

Speaker 1: awesome. I also, I've always wanted to go in person. I got to go for the very first time this year. It was really amazing. So let's share with people a little bit about what Max is, if they don't know. I'm gonna go ahead right here and share my screen. So this is, there we go, this is Adobe Max. This is the website. It happened in October, but everything was recorded, and so people could attend virtually. And you, Jessica, also brought your students this year to Max, is that right? I did. I'm so jealous you got to go in person. It was amazing. I basically was just like slack jaw the entire time, and I saw all these famous creative people and product engineers that like made all my favorite things, and I was like followed them around like, you know, like a, like a, like a creepy person. But it was really, really fun. It was even better. So if you haven't, if you don't know where to check out Max, you can follow the link below. And of course, comment to us if you've got any questions for me or Jessica. But we are so excited to share this. So if you go to Max, you can see there's a really cool video that we can't play because the audio won't work with our streaming, but there are sneaks into things that are being developed that haven't been developed yet. So you get to see like where product might go. Of course, we have our creativity for all keynotes, which are super amazing. We have inspirational keynotes from really famous creatives in all different industries. And then we have speaker upon speaker upon speaker who is changing the face of creativity every day. So it's a really exciting lineup to bring your kids and your students and have them be inspired by other creatives. So this leads me to my first question for you, Jessica, how do you help your students see beyond creativity beyond the walls of the classroom and to bring it as a part of who they are and who they're developing to be?

Speaker 2: Well, I actually have the most amazing students. They are very excited about arts and graphic design and all things creative. I have many students that actually are already invested in their own businesses, even though they're only in high school. So they thoroughly enjoy doing computer graphics in class and learning everything art and taking what they learn to other classes and they apply it in science and math and they take it home and create their own content. It's awesome.

Speaker 1: That's and I completely erroneously forgot to have you introduce yourself from where you're where you what you teach and where you're teaching from. I was so excited about Max and us like talking about it that I forgot.

Speaker 2: Okay, completely understandable. So I actually teach in Prince George's County. I teach at Charles Herbert Flowers High School. I have students that are in grades nine through 12. And we do computer graphics and AP art. It's great.

Speaker 1: That's amazing. I was also until very recently a graphic design teacher. And I also brought my kids to Max last year, we spent a few days watching different and I played music and had balloons up and I thought they loved it, but I didn't take it quite to the level that you did, Jessica, this year, which we're going to show everyone in a little bit, we've got a cute video and some amazing reflections. So tell me about why you decided to bring your students to Max this year.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so I love Max, I've been watching it since they started doing the whole thing virtual. And I wanted to share that with my students. So they had the most current knowledge and information about what Adobe was doing, what creatives are out there and what jobs they could have in the creative field. So last year, I just had them watch a few videos during class time, and they loved it. They were really excited. They were going home and watching more. So this year, I decided to kind of take that up a notch.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and you really did this. I'm excited for everyone to see how that like with all the hot music and everything and the reflections your students had. But if you're thinking like, okay, I'm going to really incredible educator, maybe not as amazing as Jessica, but I'm really amazed. I'm really amazing to want to do something like this. We actually have a lot of Congress here, who was was the big driver at Adobe. Let me bring her on. Hello, Alana. Thank you so much for joining us. And you I remember we were in a meeting saying how can we make Max even better for students. And then you drove this really great lesson plan. So let me go ahead and share my screen that you can anyone can find on the Education Exchange. So if you're like, maybe I want to take my students to Max, it's not too late. You haven't missed out. All the videos are still there. There is an incredible lesson plan that Alana is going to share with you in just a second. So Alana, do you want to do a quick intro and tell everyone what you do at Adobe so they can get to know you?

Speaker 3: Everyone, my name is Alana, and I work in product marketing at Adobe. So my whole goal of my job is to support teachers and students using Adobe in their classrooms every day. So that's why my job is so fun. I get to work with teachers like Jessica, and make sure she has what she needs for her students to be successful.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and you were the big driver behind this. I know our whole content team helped pull this together. Super kudos to Max as well, who does everything amazing on our team. But this is on our Education Exchange. So if you haven't hung out on our Education Exchange before, I will throw this up. Look at me, I'm becoming more of a there we go. Okay, that's how you go to the it's the edX that we call the edX. That's our home. That's where all of our creative things are. And if you want to find this lesson plan, we could give you the link, but you'll probably forget it. Instead, if you go up here to the little search tool, you can write in Max or Adobe Max. And it is the first lesson that's going to pop up. And Alana, share with everyone what's included in this and I'll click through for you.

Speaker 3: Sure. So the whole purpose of this lesson is to make it so that you can watch Max and make it exciting and fun with your students anytime all year round. So we've got a lesson plan here that walks you through the questions, the timings and what you'll do. Basically, we recommend a few different sessions in Max. And one is actually one that Rebecca led. Can you tell us a bit about it, Rebecca?

Speaker 1: I did this tech and creativity best skills to learn for a future job. And we found three incredible young creatives who are doing remarkable things and interview them about what it was like to be a student and how they develop their own creativity and where they're going from there and their and their careers. And so it's really fun because they're not that they're not the typical artist or sculptor. They're all in different forms of industry, including game design and streaming and UX design. So it's a really fun quick session to have your students go, wow, there's so much more to creative curves than I thought there were.

Speaker 3: Yeah. And some of the sessions like Rebecca's are just 30 minutes. So easy to watch in a class period. And there are a few more. Jessica, what did your students watch this year?

Speaker 2: So we definitely jumped around to a bunch of different videos because we watched them together and we kind of got feedback on what they wanted to see. We watched some videos that had to do with the new Adobe sneak peeks. We watched some things with the AI. We watched there were some videos that Adobe actually recommended for us to watch about the industry and people working in the career. And that was that was great.

Speaker 1: I love it. And we've selected a few for you here that are really great that are inside this lesson plan. And by the way, just huge shout out because this is the kind of sub plan I would have dreamed for. And at the end of the semester, when kids are finishing up projects and like, what am I going to have them do next? Have them go to Macs and Alana and the content team made this even better because you guys made Macs pass that are like remixable templates that kids can

Speaker 3: make their own Macs passes in. And these are a lot of fun. Shout out to our friend Claudio for designing these. Yay. And these are remixable templates. So you can have this as an assignment, you can have students do it in class, they make their own Macs pass to Adobe Express remixable and really easy for them to just put in their picture and remove the background and make it look really nice. So that's before and then after we have three different templates to reflect. So this one is top three things I learned. We have two more. See, we've got what I want to explore after Macs. And I think what I'll implement in my creative practice.

Speaker 1: Nice. So you can pick one of those or let your students pick and have you have like a perfect little experience all all pushed together. So let me see if we've got any comments or questions from our people joining us live. Hello. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much. William, it's so great to see you. We've got lots of great things, people that we know. So thank you all so much for being here. If you've got any questions, please type it into Facebook in the chat. And we will ask Jessica and Alana what the where your questions are. But we so you have this incredible lesson plan. But we have people who have already done this. So I'm going to share my screen. I'm already sharing my screen. I click over to this. I've got like mouse problems. It's like where is the mouse? There we go. This is what's so fun. We just make this open. So Alana put this together. And we have people who have already brought their kids to Macs, not just Jessica, who was a big trailblazer for us. But you reach out to a few other schools. Is that right?

Speaker 3: Yes. So we selected several schools across the country in California and Maryland and Ohio to bring their students to Macs. We sent them exclusive swag and cookies and, you know, coffee for their students to make it a whole party. Carte High School had stickers and their students created conference passes. And they made it a whole thing. And the next slide shows some of the conference passes that they made.

Speaker 1: I think it's so fun. And they even have lanyards that feels like I didn't ever get to go to a conference until I was a full fledged adult. I can't imagine getting to go as a high school student. And just and just real quick, Jessica, you're getting an awesome. Hey, hi, shout out from Lisa Stewart. Hi. So great. Lisa's here. So we've got all of our people. We've got Peter saying hi. Super great. So thank you all for coming. Join in. Let us know if you've got any questions. Okay, keep going, Alana. Sorry, I wanted to.

Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was Carte. Then we had a high school in Napa, which was really wonderful. They also showed their students. New Technology High School with Lisa Gottfried, learning about photography, Lightroom and race cars with her graphic design students. So students all over watching Max virtually. And again, you can do this at any time because it's on demand and it's free. And Jessica, this is your high school. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Speaker 2: Yes. So, um, I wanted I know it's not as good as Adobe, but I wanted to try and bring that energy that Max always starts with, with the music and the countdown and everybody getting pumped up for the event. So a few days before my students made their conference passes, which was a huge hit. They were walking around the school looking like I'm going to the conference. Nobody else can come in. So they were VIP going into the room. They were very excited. And then we all had breakfast together. We had lunch together and we spent the day just talking about art and watching those videos. And they helped me set up beforehand. It was supposed to be a surprise, but it's OK. Decorated the whole room. I know we'll see that in a little bit, but they were really into it. They were really excited.

Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got this awesome video. Let's see this.

Speaker 3: I love the decorations.

Speaker 2: And they got food. We were all eating breakfast. The food is always, always a winner with the students. So I need again. Sorry. Hold on. The next slide. We're just gonna keep watching

Speaker 1: and they're gonna go ahead. Just gonna party with them. That is so great. And and and Lisa is he just put this hat this this on and so hashtag PG's PGC. I get so small my screen PGC PS proud.

Speaker 2: So our district art supervisor that was a big supporter of all of these things happening with Adobe.

Speaker 1: Now, it's really exciting. And that's these are those those experiences that it's I know is a heavy lift to do this, but no kid is ever going to forget this that they got to go to Max and be inspired by a creative, a creative professional that they normally wouldn't go across. They would never bump into. They might never know about. And that's what's so exciting about this opportunity. I think that we know if you're in rural Alabama or in Missouri like me or Michigan or Oregon, you're going to meet you're going to meet creatives from across the world. And you're for your students to get inspired by people beyond you and that look like them or think like them or do do things that that really interest them. That's going to be life changing for them. So kudos to you, Jessica, for doing this. And I love that we've got these beautiful reflections here from your students afterwards. So do you want to take us through these?

Speaker 2: Yeah, so I actually those templates were super helpful. I gave those to my students before we started watching the video. So they kind of had an idea of what we were going to be doing at the end besides us actually just talking about it through the entire day. And I gave them the options. We gave them all three. And I would say the majority of the students did all three, even though I only asked them to do one. They were very excited about what they did. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Oh, that makes my heart like warm and fuzzy. Beautiful quotes here, too.

Speaker 2: Yes, they were very excited and they actually are still talking about Adobe. We had awesome swag. We had these great Photoshop pillows. I'm not sure if that picture is in there or not, but they were so excited. I was throwing those out. It was just like they won the lottery.

Speaker 1: I have my I'm I'm an Illustrator girl myself. That's my favorite program. I have my little Illustrator that I bought myself a few years ago on my it's like the only the only special pillow on my on my couch over there. So, yes, I totally get that. Those are the most beautiful things. And I love this. So I like creativity has no limit. So this was this is exciting. What are you going to do next year?

Speaker 2: So next year, hopefully it's OK with Lisa. I want to go a little bit bigger and kind of do the same thing. But I really want to try and get the community involved, get our actual artists from around the area to come in so they can have those one on one conversations with our students.

Speaker 1: Oh, that'd be amazing. And then you see you have like almost a live conference and the virtual Adobe conference. That sounds well. Well, we want to hear all about that. And I think that's so incredible. And, you know, for any of you who are thinking about doing this, you can do this for one hour. You could do this for across a couple of days. It's something you there's so much incredible content that you could loop in from Adobe Max with your students all year long. Alana, any other suggestions for educators who are kind of excited to get this started?

Speaker 3: I would just say go for it. You know, it doesn't have to be a whole big thing. It's fun to have streamers and cookies and coffee and conference passes. But just show one video. It's it's Rebecca said it's a great sub opportunity. You do it for extra credit. You could just do it for an assignment. But it's just really fun for students to see that there are real opportunities in the creative world when you have access to these tools and know how to use them.

Speaker 1: Oh, I love that. And that's we've got a couple of comments. We've got Taylor, who says that's amazing. And it really is. And then we have Alison, who says that's my practice as well. And Lisa again says mini max for students. And we've got, I think, your friend Erin, who says, hi, Jessica and Lisa. This is so exciting. People are chatting across. So this is what's so fun. This is what's so fun about this. So, Jessica, from you, we've we've shared out the resources for teachers who are kind of excited and interested in doing this in any way. It doesn't have to be as incredible and amazing as obviously is what happened with what Jessica has done and some of these other teachers. You can just start off small, like Alison suggested. But any other suggestions you have for for teachers before we close off?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if you go through the Adobe Max conference first, you know your students best. You'll be able to find videos that really relate to them and then give them the opportunity to explore. Have them go through Adobe Max as well and check it out, because there's so many different things on there that they might not even think of.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really true. My my students found all of these things and one of them found a shoe designer. And that's his whole focus and goal in life. And so watch that and brought that back in on a bunch of projects for the rest of the year. So it's exciting to see what they connect with and who they connect with and who inspires them. So such a great way. So, Jessica, thank you for being an incredible, amazing teacher. And shout out to your school district, too, who supports you to do this. That's really incredible. And of course, the amazing Lisa Stewart, who we all love and respect. And Alana, thank you so much for being the driver behind this and making sure that this got into the hands of students and continues to do so. So remember, check this out on the Education Exchange. Give us feedback. Tweeted us. Let us know how that's going. And of course, you can shout out things from the live stream here. I'll check and see if we've got any other comments or questions before we head out. And oh, and you get look at this. Lisa's so lovely. Alana, you get a thank you for being such a huge supporter. Of our students. So my pleasure.

Speaker 3: I love working with you and your teachers. They are what inspired me to do my job every day.

Speaker 1: So thank you. We're a huge Prince George's fan. So we're going to close it now. But thank you all so much for being here. And thank you all for watching. And we hope that you bring your students to Max and help them see creativity beyond the walls of the classroom.

Speaker 2: Thank you.