Conference Season: What to do if you can't make it

Artist Name: Amanda R

Every Fall I look forward to attending the MAEA conference. I know I will walk away feeling energized and full of ideas gleaned from sessions that are both relevant and will have great impact on my students in my classroom. Unfortunately, I am not able to attend this year's conference. If you are like me and staying home this weekend, here are three ways to plug into what is happening in Art Education even if you cannot always make it to the conference.

1. Check out Online Conferences. With the use of Webcams, Screencasts, and Videos, there are several websites that are offering conference experiences for Visual Arts teachers who may not have the funds or flexibility to travel to their State or National Conferences. Websites like The Art of Education (which is offering a Winter Conference featuring a variety of sessions) and The Education Closet (which offers monthly Master Classes that are hosted by Arts teachers on various topics in Arts Education) are making it easier for teachers to catch up on Professional Development without having to leave their homes. A free conference that has resources from a variety of content areas that I have also presented for is the K12 Online Conference. Dating back to 2008, you can search through their videos and catch up on a variety of hot topics in education with several sessions created by Visual Arts teachers from all grade levels. Although this does not replace the time spent face to face with other Arts Educators from across the State, it does offer an alternative for those (like me) who are missing out this year. 
2. Turn to Social Media. Even if I am not there, I can follow along with my colleagues and friends through their news feeds and capture bits and pieces to be inspired by through the magic of Twitter and Facebook. Although it might seem like you are being a secret stalker, take to your feeds during conference weekends and examine the pictures of demos, projects, and quotes that your friends are sharing. If something piques your interest, then favorite/like it and make note to ask more questions of your friend once they return from the conference. I have already gotten a lot of great ideas from friends in Indiana and New Jersey, whose Art Education Conferences were held earlier this month. Even though I was not there, I was able to share in some of the highlights through interacting with my attendee friends in our Social Media connections.
3. Plan for Next Year. It may be too late to attend this year's conference, but it is a great time to start planning for next year. In 2014 the conference is going to be in Lansing. Don't wait until the last minute to decide to go; instead, use the year to start saving and planning and getting ready to learn and share next Fall. 

If you are going to the conference, please share your resources below so that others can learn along with you, too! What makes for a great conference and what are some of your favorite MAEA moments of year's past?

What did you Learn?

It has been a couple of weeks since the MAEA Fall 2012 Conference, and I am still sorting through bags of handouts, sample materials, and pictures that are filled with great ideas and classroom inspiration. This conference had it all - great views of Traverse City, awesome sessions with expert teachers, and loads of ideas to take back and implement into the classroom. Here are a couple of take-aways that will be helping me through this year:

1. Assessment: Claudia Burns had a great Thursday night session on Assessment where teachers were able to share how they are working with the new evaluation requirement to show student growth. Teachers gave examples of how the implement both formative and summative assessment tools as well as the resources they use to help with pre and post testing. You will notice a new tab on our blog labeled "Assessment" - Claudia will be putting resource materials on there to help you get started or advance your understanding of how this works in an art classroom.

2. Creativity: There were several sessions that had creativity at the heart of it. Adam VanHouten, September Buys, and Cindy Todd gave presentations dealing with aspects of creativity in the classroom. I enjoyed learning about various methods of instruction to help foster innovative thinking. Both Adam and September used www.prezi.com to create interactive presentations on how they apply this in their classrooms.

3. Workshops: The amount of hands-on opportunities this conference did not disappoint. Sharon Stratton gave an awesome workshop that not only gave great resources for using unusual materials like tar paper, bleach, and soap to make awesome works of art, but also included pop-rocks in her presentation (which was a sweet surprise). The vendors also did not disappoint with their samples and make-and-takes which helps when deciding if you want to purchase products on display.

4. Data: One of the best moments was the presentation by Dr. Root-Bernstein. His keynote on the link between the Arts and everything else put hard facts and figures to something we always have felt to be true: that when you invest in the Arts, you are investing in all other aspects of learning. It was a great talk and I look forward to reading his book that goes into the topic further.


Overall, this was a great conference to attend. It was full of information and moments to connect with others. Conferences like these are important for our profession. What was your favorite part of MAEA 2012? Please share links, pictures, and information below so we can archive the highlights of this year's conference.

Ready to Go!

Today is the start of the annual MAEA Conference and I am so excited! It is a great time to connect with other teachers from around the state and share information on what works best in Art Education. It is a time where I learn so much from my peers and receive the valuable resources that allow my classroom to thrive and grow.

Artists Name: Samantha J.

School: Heritage HS

If you are attending MAEA this weekend, here are some tips that I have found helpful when attending any conference: 

1. Have a plan: Go through the Conference booklet (available online) to help plan out what you want to attend and when they are taking place. Also have a back-up plan in case your first choice fills up too quickly. With the new mobile feature on the MAEA site, you can easily do this through your smartphone or tablet.

2. Ask questions: If you attend a session and you want to know more about something that was said by the presenter, make sure to ask. As a presenter, I want to make sure my presentation is relevant and helpful to the audience. If there is something that you want to know more about, just ask. 

3. Check out the Vendors: I think my favorite part is checking out the booths from the great Vendors that come to MAEA. Not only do you end up with bags full of samples, but there are opportunities to participate in "Make and Takes" and talk with knowledgable spokespeople from the companies represented. If you have questions about purchasing supplies, new equipment, or other resources, this is a great time to connect and research through first hand experience. 

4. Student Work: Make sure to take the time and check out the great student work on display. I am always amazed at the talent and creativity each year during our conference. It is also a great time to get ideas from other teachers by seeing how they taught a lesson so you can adapt it in your own classroom. 

5. Tweet it out: Please use the hashtag #MAEA12 to tweet any important ideas or information you gained from this conference. This allows ideas to be shared from a variety of sessions - it will be like you can experience being in more places at once! When the conference is complete, I will post the resource here so that we can all enjoy the conference over and over again! 

I hope you have the best experience this weekend at the conference. If you are unable to attend, follow #MAEA12 to get updates on the new lessons learned throughout this weekend of learning and sharing in Art Education.

Show and Tell

Show and Tell is a concept that we all know; usually it is done with lower elementary students and they get to bring in an item and share it with their peers by showing it off and talking about it. The Show and Tell concept is not only for kids, it also happens for educators through conferences. Do you have a lesson, concept, or technique that has always worked for you and you want to share it? Consider presenting at the MAEA Conference in Traverse City, October 25-28th or the NAEA 2013 conference in Texas!

Being able to share information with my peers has been a highlight for me both professionally and personally. It is nice to connect with other teachers and show what works for you in the classroom; it is even more fun to hear back from those who have attended your sessions on how they have been able to use the information in their own classrooms. When presenting, or putting together a presentation, it is important to think about your time allotment, who your audience is, and what you want your audience to get out of what you are presenting.


The aRTs Roundable, a podcast hosted by Carol Broos, dedicated an episode to the topic of presenting at Art conferences. One tip I found very helpful was having your resources online instead of making copies for handouts; even when making it online, be sure to have a backup in case the internet is down. If you make a Prezi (which is my go-to presentation tool right now), you can download it and then show easily either online or right from your desktop. Instead of wasting papers on copies, consider creating a business card with your website or contact information on it so that participants can go to there to review the presentation again or ask follow up questions later. The biggest take-away from this podcast on presenting was making sure to focus on the kids and how whatever you are presenting on will help teachers reach their kids in new and interesting ways.

Great conferences are made possible because educators like you are willing to share your time, showing and telling the tips and tricks that make your classroom work. If you have any sure-fire presentation tips to share or are planning to present at an upcoming conference, please comment below.

No post about presentations is complete without Don McMillan's video on how not to use PowerPoint: