Professional Development: AOE WInter Conference

I'm so looking forward to the Art of Education Winter Conference this weekend. Have you signed up? My position at school is still part time, so I haven't been able to swing traveling to the NAEA conventions when they are far away. I LOVED going to NYC in 2012! I can't wait for it to come back to the east coast. 

If you are an art teacher with a limited budget and/or schedule, or if you would like to have more professional development experiences specifically for our subject matter, I highly recommend an AOE conference!

This will be my 3rd conference and I always walk away inspired, informed, and equipped with new classroom strategies, lesson plans, and ways to reflect on and improve my teaching and my students' successes! Oh, and since it's online, I can go back and re-watch my favorite presenters, or things I may have wanted to see more closely as speakers were presenting!

I also just got my box of AOE Swag, which I received for registering early! I will have materials at the ready for experiencing new materials and techniques, and have some freebies to try out on my own. Woo hoo! I hope to spend some virtual time with you this weekend! See you there.

And if you're not registered for the conference, just go visit their site! There are loads of articles and short videos on all things art education!

Off to Convention! Any Advice?

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?