Sir Ken Robinson, a leading creativity advocate whom many of you know from his bestselling book “The Element,” and his acclaimed TedTalk video, has joined Adobe in the past by having a voice in our blog. “The Element” inspired readers all over the world to discover what really makes them tick and get the most out of their lives and work. Today, the long-awaited companion and complimentary book, “Finding Your Element: How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life,” is being released.

To accompany the book’s debut, a new one-hour TV program on American Public Television, “Finding Your Element with Sir Ken Robinson,” will air on public television stations nationwide beginning June 1 (check local listings). The program offers practical advice as well as techniques and resources that we believe will help educators put creative ideas into practice in the classroom. Per Sir Ken, the “element” is the point where natural talents meet personal passions; once you find your element, your life takes on a new character and purpose.

Here at Adobe, we focus on helping educators and students discover their passions by advocating for creativity and creative thinking in the classroom. Finding your “element” plays a key role in unleashing creativity – so we encourage you to watch Sir Ken’s PBS program, think about where your talents and passions meet, how they define your personal brand, and how you can articulate your brand in ways that will inspire your students. That way you can make creativity an everyday element in your classroom.

Join us @adobeedu by tweeting with the #CreateNowEdu hashtag to let us know how you are unlocking creativity in your classroom! You can also participate in the conversation about Sir Ken by following the #SirKenElement hashtag.

Disclosure: Adobe Education Marketing team is a proud sponsor of Sir Ken’s public program on American Public Television.

As you may have already heard, today at Adobe MAX, the Creativity Conference, Adobe announced a significant update to Adobe Creative Cloud, the company’s flagship offering for creatives. Available in June and packed with new features, Creative Cloud reimagines the creative process through a stunning set of Creative Cloud desktop applications (“CC” apps) and sophisticated cross-device collaboration and publishing capabilities. Creative files can be stored, synced and shared, via Creative Cloud; and Behance, the world’s leading online creative community, is now integrated with Creative Cloud, so customers can showcase work, get feedback on projects and gain global exposure. For education, this means keeping a competitive edge and providing students and educators with access to the latest tools for college and career success.

This update to Creative Cloud includes the next generation of Adobe desktop applications—including Adobe Photoshop® CC, InDesign® CC, Illustrator® CC, Dreamweaver® CC and Premiere® Pro CC. Adobe’s desktop tools, previously known as Creative Suite (CS), are now branded CC to reflect that they are an integral part of Creative Cloud and have been reinvented to support a more intuitive, connected way of creating. Adobe Creative Cloud includes more than 30 tools and services that enable professional grade content creation and delivery across print, web, mobile apps, video and photography.

New Licensing Program for Education

Also today, Adobe announced a new licensing option for primary, secondary, and higher education institutions. The Education Enterprise Agreement (EEA) program is an easy-to-manage, term-based licensing program that gives educational institutions access to the new CC apps. With this program, institutional customers can have the creative tools they need to be more productive, foster creativity in teaching and learning, and help their students develop essential digital communication skills.

Additional ways students, educators and institutions can purchase Creative Cloud:

• Creative Cloud for individual—includes a membership offer for individual use by students and teachers available on Adobe.com and through authorized resellers.
• Creative Cloud for enterprise—provides the best coverage model for institution-wide access to Creative Cloud apps and services under an Enterprise Term Licensing Agreement (ETLA).

For more information about Creative Cloud enhancements please see today’s press release. Additional details on EEA can be found here.

With conflicting research on how classrooms can and should change to better support student learning, it can be challenging for education reformers to know where to focus.

Recently, the Carnegie Corporation announced a $15M grant program to seed the creation of innovative models for new high schools in the U.S. To qualify, applicants must demonstrate how their school plans to leverage Carnegie’s 10 integrated design principles for a high performing secondary school. In their report, Opportunity by Design: New High School Models for Student Success, Carnegie notes that “Instead of retooling individual elements such as teacher preparation, learning time, or technology in isolation, all the elements that we know work and some emerging tools must be integrated into comprehensive school designs that will truly meet the needs of every student.” In essence, we need a complete redesign of how schools work and what schooling means.

There is a lot to be done, but for starters, we’ve seen how integrating technology into a school’s fundamental design can create new avenues for learning and teaching. New tools for visualizing data enable teachers to explain complex material, while helping students better understand complicated math or science concepts. Technology unlocks access to ideas and resources that have value and application beyond the walls of a computer lab; the power of technology impacts classrooms long after the laptop has been powered down for the night.

Most importantly, technology fosters creative thinking by expanding the tools we have to be creative. By incorporating digital storytelling or mobile game design into the classroom, we allow students to explore and think outside the box. And, as we’ve said here before, companies want employees who can do more than specific tasks – they want people who can think creatively, who innovate and who have the right skills for tomorrow’s workplace. To better prepare our students for success, we should integrate lessons and assignments that promote creative and innovative thinking. Technology is just one tool that will help educators achieve these goals.

The opportunity to innovate is here. What do you think it will take to create the high school of tomorrow?

College students, get ready to battle! Today we are inviting you to show off your creative talent and stand out on campus by participating in the Adobe Creative Cloud Battle for the Band contest. Make a t-shirt, poster, backstage pass, video, or any other designs produced with Adobe tools for a chance to win an exclusive on campus concert, produced by Live Nation® and pop punk band – All Time Low.

To help you get a winning edge, download a free trial of Adobe Creative Cloud or take advantage of Adobe’s special price of $19.99 for a student membership. But you have to hurry! The contest ends on April 7.

Submissions will be judged between April 8 and April 11 and winners, selected by All Time Low, will be announced by mid-April. While the grand prize winner will receive an exclusive, on-campus performance by All Time Low, the second place winner will receive $1,000USD and all entrants will receive $20USD in Live Nation® Concert Cash© to be used for any concert tickets or merchandise.

Not ready to show off your creative skills? You can also enter the Rock Flight Sweepstakes for a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip for two to any Live Nation concert in the U.S. or Canada. In addition to reviewing submission guidelines and deadline information, contestants can gauge the competition, submit designs and vote for their favorite artwork on Adobe’s Battle for the Band Facebook page.

So what are you waiting for, go out there and show off your creative skills before it’s too late!

Our economic growth and health as a nation rely on our collective ability to innovate. The most successful innovations – across healthcare, education, and the environment – result from the combination of creative thinking, world-class technology, and cutting-edge design. But today’s education system needs to do a better job of setting our students up for success in today’s global workplace. One area we think is critical is around fostering creative thinking. Creativity can no longer be treated as an elective in education; it must be core to the way we teach and learn. STEAM – adding Art and creativity to the national imperative around Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) – is an important step forward here.

In collaboration with the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and a broad range of education and industry partners, Adobe is working to drive awareness and impact in this area. Part of this work will take place at the SXSW Education event next week in Austin, Texas, in the panel session called, “STEM to STEAM: Full Circle from Education to Economy.” I am thrilled to join other panelists such as Ainissa Ramirez (Yale University), Rosemarie Truglio (Sesame Workshop), Matt Goldman (Blue School & Blue Man Group) and John Maeda (Rhode Island School of Design) to discuss how art and design methods can be introduced into STEM-centric learning. We’d like to invite you to join us in one of the following ways:

1. Join us at SXSWedu. If you are attending this year’s SXSWedu conference, please join us on March 6 at 1:30 p.m. at the Austin Convention Center Room 16AB. We’re also hosting a STEAM social that night. For more information and to RSVP, go here.
2. Join the conversation. Share your thoughts and comments using the hashtag #SXSWSTEAM. If you are attending the SXSWedu panel please share your takeaways using the above hashtag.
3. Tweet to Give. For every mention of #AdobeSXSW on Twitter and Instagram, we will donate $1 up to $10,000 to STEM to STEAM. Learn more about our conversation for a cause here.

Thanks,

Jon Perera: @jon_perera

Here at Adobe we celebrate the creative student in many shapes and forms, and strive to help you continue to do what you love — create.

We want to hear from every student with a passion for creativity, a drive for design, a desire for honing your craft and the story behind it. To help celebrate our thirst for originality and creativity, we are launching the “#whyicreate” Twitter sweepstakes.

Give us a peek inside your creative process and share how you harness your inspiration with us on Twitter through photos or videos. If you send us an image or video and use hashtag #whyicreate, you’ll be entered to win a Panasonic GH2 camera — a tool that can help open up your creative world even more. All you have to do is shoot, tweet and tag for a chance to win. As always, creativity is encouraged!

Enter #whyicreate Sweepstakes February 20, 2013 – March 5, 2013.

Check out the official rules here.

Any questions, hit us up @AdobeStudents on Twitter or post in the comments below.

For inspiration, feel free to check out this video from David Cone here.  

Today, I am thrilled to announce the re-launch of the Adobe Education Exchange (AEE), our online community for connecting creative educators around the world. Since we launched the platform two and a half years ago, more than 75,000 educators have joined the AEE and shared over 4,000 resources. With this re-launch, we’ve redesigned the user experience, added new features, and integrated social capabilities. Adobe Education Exchange members can now more easily discover and contribute quality teaching and learning resources, connect with other members, participate in lively discussions, and explore professional development workshops.

Committed to providing the best online community for educators, we spent the last couple of years listening and collecting user feedback. Based on the response and site analysis, we have redesigned the platform with an emphasis on four key themes:

• Ease of use – With a simplified navigation, design and workflow, educators can easily accomplish key activities such as searching resources and members, sharing lesson plans and starting discussion topics with other members.
• Discoverability of content – By allowing visitors to browse resources without logging in and opening the content up to search engine indexing, more educators will become aware of the high-quality support the community has to offer.  
• Social capabilities – Members can now follow other members, get timely notifications, earn points and badges, and share content to social networks. We’re weaving a social fabric into the community and giving members the ability to showcase their creative teaching.
• Extensibility – To cater to educators’ future needs, we’ve created APIs that will open up new opportunities to extend the platform and integrate with other online communities and platforms.

To celebrate the all new Adobe Education Exchange, we’re kicking off a four-day long #AdobeEDEX Scavenger Hunt to help you discover all we have to offer! Each day, we’ll reveal a clue on Twitter via @AdobeEDU. Complete each of the four clues and be entered to win one of four iPad minis. If you complete a clue within 20 minutes of it being tweeted, you’ll receive an additional entry! Remember to include the hashtag #AdobeEDEX in your tweets. Cick here to see the rules.

Now is the time to make the Adobe Education Exchange your online hub to help ignite creativity at your institution. Check out the new Adobe Education Exchange at http://edex.adobe.com.

Today, on Digital Learning Day, I am thrilled to announce that Adobe continues to do great work with Globaloria; a national program that teaches kids how to design and program their own games using Adobe Flash. As a way to celebrate Digital Learning Day and help make digital literacy a reality for more students, the Adobe Foundation will match 100% of donations, up to $50,000. Click here to donate.

With funding from the Adobe Foundation and others, Globaloria will continue to support the advancement of digital literacy for 1,100 underserved youth in seven schools and two community centers in Silicon Valley. These funds will also enable the World Wide Workshop, an organization that develops applications for learning with technology, and the creators of Globaloria, to expand to more than 3,000 youth across the Valley in 2013.

Digital literacy is the new fluency. Help us make sure that all students have a chance to thrive. Donate now: http://www.globaloria.org/Adobe.

Last year, we unveiled Adobe Creative Cloud, which we believe is the future of creative software from Adobe and the place where innovation will be delivered first. And we’ve had a deep commitment to education, providing our highest levels of discounts to this critical group of customers.

Starting today, we are offering a new promotion for Adobe Creative Cloud membership to students, teachers, faculty, and education staff at $19.99/month for the annual membership. This is a 60% discount off the commercial price in North America.  

For students and teachers who want to stay current with the latest creative software, Adobe Creative Cloud is the easiest and most affordable way forward. In North America, the promotion runs through March 11^th. Pricing for the traditional perpetual products will continue to have a significant discount relative to the commercial products.

According to a recent Adobe creativity study, 88% of U.S. professionals believe that creativity should be built into standard curricula. I think it’s because more and more people are realizing the importance of creativity in their work place and beyond. Companies are looking for more than graduates who can do specific tasks—they want employees who can also think differently and innovate. To be successful, students need an education that emphasizes creative thinking, communication, and teamwork. And as Sir Ken Robinson concludes in this next video “Creativity is not an option, it’s an absolute necessity.”

Why is creativity important in education? Join the conversation on Twitter using the #createnow hashtag and be sure to tag us at @adobeedu!