The NAEA convention takes place in NYC this year. Since I live so close, I am making it my business to be there! I am hoping I bump into some of my fellow teacher bloggers, so please keep an eye out for me.
I have been looking over the schedules and am feeling a bit overwhelmed. The offerings for the first day alone are 68 pages long! I want to take advantage of as much as possible, but don't want to fry my brain with too much input day after day. Does anyone have experience with past conferences? Are there things you wish you had gotten to see or do in the past? Are you inspired more by hands-on learning or great speakers?
The one thing I have in my favor is that I can navigate the city well, and already have exposure to the museums outside of convention (although free admission to MOMA is quite tempting!) So, please comment, what's your game plan, if any? What would you do if you were going? What should I not miss?
3 comments:
Hi! I'm going too!! Take a highlighter and highlight what you want to go to. I've found that you really should look at the target audience.. for example if it says "higher ed" it's going to be very academic/theory driven. If that's what you like, go for it, but it might not be directly applicable to the little kiddos. To find the most directly useful workshops go to ones that are directed toward your grade level or given by an elementary teacher. Make sure to spend a lot of time in the vendor hall, it's so much fun!! I will probably take an afternoon off to go to the Met.
It'll be my first, too, and yes, the schedule is totally overwhelming. The problem with highlighting is that you don't want to print 60+ pages per day. I'm trying to narrow it down some and copy them out to highlight. But since I'm retiring and am paying my own way, I'm pretty much at liberty to do as much or as little as I want. I could roam the streets of Manhattan and nobody back home would know.
I want to make sure we have some sort of blogger get-together somehow, but where/when/how is a little hard to figure out. I'll post some thoughts later on this weekend. I think it needs to start with an exchange of cell phone #'s, and I'll be suggesting that we do that via email. Then maybe we'll all go to MoMA together, or eat a meal together, or just meet up at the vendor hall... I don't know. I'm rooming with a blogger-buddy so I'm starting from there, but definitely would love to meet some of the people I've been communicating with via the blogs. Very excited!!
Now, what to pack?....
The convention is overwhelming and that's that! I agree to focus on presenters from the level you teach. Also, if you walk in and don't find it something that really interests you - walk out! You will get an actual book when you get to the convention, so hold off on printing all those pages! Finally, if you have an iPhone download the APP, it's awesome! Looking forward to meeting up!
~ Susan
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