My Journey to the Adobe Youth Voices Summit

July 28, 2009. Night before the Adobe Youth Voices Summit in Palo Alto, California at Stanford and I’m finally getting excited to go. We didn’t manage to get the required pre-summit video together. Too many road blocks. I’m worried that the kids won’t show at the airport tomorrow (worried about one more than the other).

July 29, 2009. Both boys show at the airport! They are on their way to California, having never flown before. I wonder what is going through their minds at this point. I’m “twittering” the trip. We get here and I ask one of the boys if he has brought a uniform shirt (they asked for some nicer clothes for some of the events). He says no…even though I have sent at least 3 emails indicating this. I get angry, and have to remind myself that not all children are reared in the same manner. I have to remind myself that it’s not that big of a deal. I’m more upset about the fact that he didn’t read the emails, but again, a self-reflection hits me that even at 12/13 years old these children still need to be educated on life skills and responsibility. It makes me feel grateful that I have done this with my own children since they could walk. I tell both boys that they need to use “church manners” on this trip and that we will see people from 14 different countries here; each dressing differently and speaking differently. I remind J that he needs to remove his ear buds when people are speaking to him….We haven’t even begun any formal training and I’m exhausted. Tonight we meet for dinner, and then complete an activity that allows us to meet members of small groups we will be assigned to. Each member receives pieces to one of five puzzles. The goal? Find members of the group that have the same puzzle pieces as you. After doing so, put the puzzle together to receive a clue as to which workshop you will be a part of. My housemates? Educators from Belarus, Uganda, and New York. Holla!


July 30, 2009. During the opening session this morning many of the students are quietly sitting by their teachers. Most are still shy at this point. Our speaker is David Nakabayashi, Creative Director in the in Art/Visual Effects department at Lucasfilm. He speaks to us about his filmmaking background and encourages the students to stay focused with storytelling and getting their message heard. He even shows us clips for a documentary that he has been working on for 5 years, leaving the audience with his top 5 tips: technology doesn't replace creativity, always keep your audience in mind- make it mean something, failure is not an option...but it's gonna happen anyway, love it, hate it, but finish it, and have fun. Excellent advice.

Broken into our groups, we attend individual workshops. My group is working on using Photoshop and After Effects to animate still images. Few people were familiar with how to prep our pictures within Photoshop. As our leader isn’t an educator, he tells people verbally what to do, without demonstrating on the LCD. It takes only a minute for him to rush around the room scratching his head because we are all at different stages. We are frustrated, he is frustrated. There is also an assumption that everyone coming in has used Photoshop. Many have not. Add to that about 5 other languages that are spoken in the room. To make matters worse, Adobe pulls the educators to attend a best practices breakout session of our own. So….we began a process and didn’t finish it. I was incredibly curious to see how to animate. Still don’t know.

During the educator session we are once again broken into smaller-bite-size groups. In these sessions we share our media pieces and get a chance to talk about what we did with our AYV programs. A good session, but would have been better if there would have been more specific questions such as: how did the students select the topics, how many students, during school or after school, what programs did you use to create your piece, etc.
The session ends, and many of the educators sneak off campus for the night (my pics of this are on Facebook).

July 31, 2009. Today we begin the day traveling to Adobe’s headquarters for workshops. It’s difficult to know which workshops to sign up for, as we had to sign up for them weeks ago, with no real description of each. Are they beginner classes? Is it assumed you know the featured program already? I attend a Photoshop session which turns out to be a beginning level class, taught by a lady who is getting frustrated with the kids because they aren’t listening as closely as they should be. Lucky for me, I sat with another teacher from San Jose that knew a good deal about Photoshop, so we moved on ahead of everybody else. What was cool about that is two Photoshop developers wander over to us and show us all sorts of cool features (which of course I remember none of now...)

We leave Adobe and travel to Dreamworks Studios. There are four speakers: the first shows us new 3D animation from Kung Fu Panda, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Madagascar. Very cool. The speaker also shows us how the story boards for Madagascar were developed, and shows story boards of deleted scenes. Next, an art director explains how the art is created and drawn up before the movies are animated. Finally, a director speaks to the group about how they should “follow their bliss” and takes questions about internships. In all, there was far too much sitting and being talked to. We were all disappointed that there was no type of tour and the kids didn’t receive any sort of souvenir to take back to their countries. Everyone boards the buses back to Stanford, except for me and another teacher who head to San Francisco for a Giants baseball game, followed by another late night downtown.


August 1, 2009. This morning we meet “Black Nature”, a refugee from Sierra Leone that has become famous for both the struggles he has endured and the music he has made from forming the band Refugee All Stars. Impressive. We also learn more about an organization that was founded to help other countries to promote their music: weowntv.org.



There are more breakout sessions. This time I attend one on Creating Real Community Impact. Didn’t learn much, not very impressed. Instead of sticking with the group and heading to the cafeteria, four of us sneak off for lunch at In and Out Burger. After lunch is the closing session with housekeeping items and certificates of completion.


Tonight is the Adobe Youth Voices Live! Program in San Francisco. Very similar to our gala at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Many students from the Boys and Girls Club in the Bay Area perform outstanding dance moves, as the Black Eyed Peas come on stage to sing/dance. They talk about a partnership they have formed with Adobe Called “The Black Eyed Peas Peapod” program, promoting youth getting their message out through music. Afterwards, we hear from select students and see their work. Little did I know, there would be a celebrity among us: OUR VERY OWN SHANE JONAS’ AYV project from Kellman is shown on the screen. Holla!! I’m busy texting Shane swear words because I can’t believe I’m watching his clip sitting in San Francisco!! In between texts I’m telling everyone around me that Shane is my bud. They roll their eyes....




After outstanding media, we head to the gala celebration room. The room is stunning. Everything is red and white. There is a gigantic screen which runs a one minute piece that many of the students had completed. There are huge boards with different colored markers where kids can leave messages. A candy bar, an ice cream bar, a cookie bar. I need to get on a treadmill.





On the way home, our bus is alive. Students from around the globe singing karaoke on the p.a. system. We heard copulations of everything from Sponge Bob Square Pants to Snoop. Two boys rapped in their native tongues: absolutely brilliant Allan from Uganda (who will attend MIT next year) to a boy from Jordan that was a presence throughout the entire summit. I’m waiting for someone to share the inevitable YouTube version…

Back to Stanford at midnight, back in the car downtown for some goodbyes with my new friends from Uganda, England, New York, San Francisco, and Canada.


In terms of soft skills, I’d say the Summit was a success. It is great that Adobe placed so much emphasis on storyboarding and the major emphasis on creating with purpose. Hard skills? A disappointment. Being new to the program and not having a background in video production, I was disappointed that there weren’t more opportunities to learn more skills- especially for schools new to the program. I also felt there was far too much sitting and listening in a lecture format. There were approximately 66 students there, with about 40 or so coming from countries where English is not their first language. For me the most valuable piece was the late night excursions away where real teachers sat together and talked about our success, failure, and ideas. There will be greater collaboration amongst the educators there because these side trips took place. In fact, on the second day of the Summit one of the teachers asked Adobe to give us an email list for the teachers. They basically gave a run around and tried to avoid the question. But…by the end of day 4, everyone had signed an email sheet that was passed around by one of the teachers without reservation. By the end of day 5, everyone was saying goodbyes and saying they couldn’t wait for the list to be distributed…

As for my students, they were the youngest ones there. The two other girls from Chicago were 8th graders moving into high school this year. We were the only two elementary schools in attendance. For one of them, the trip was probably life altering. The other one was far more reserved, but who knows what was going through his mind. Either way, two students from the West Side of Chicago got a chance to spend five days at Stanford, learning how teens from around the world are just like them.