Technology Resources

NAEA webinar

I attended an online professional development recently that was presented by the National Art Education Association. It really exemplifies the power of learning in the online environment. The webinar was titled Where the Wild Things Are and facilitated by two art educators who are well versed in multiple tools to assist in teaching. Chris Guenter who you can follow on Twitter @cguenter and Theresa McGeen who you can follow on Twitter @theresamcgee.

The most amazing part was the website that they put together to house all of the tools they shared plus a ton of other resources located at http://cguenter.weebly.com/free-online-art-tools.html. And, all of the tools are FREE. Don’t miss checking it out!

The Powerpoint presentation and recorded webinar will be posted to the National Art Education Association website at: http://www.arteducators.org/.

New Visual Arts Standards

Opportunity for professional development from National Art Education Association

Implementing the New Visual Arts Standards: A Resource to Support Instruction Aligned with State Standards
Tuesday, October 21, 2014 | 7pm ET
Complimentary to NAEA members; $49/non-members
Presenters: Dennis Inhulsen, NAEA President and Chair of the Visual Arts Writing Team; Scott Russell, Elementary Art Teacher and Writing Team Member; Cory Wilkerson, Communications Chair, National Coalition of Core Arts Standards

The new standards provide opportunities for art educators to look at instruction and student growth through an aspirational lens.   Learn how art educators are connecting the new voluntary standards with their own state and district standards. See how the new standards framework can be aligned with state standards to support student learning by embedding Enduring Understandings for instruction.

To register, please click here.

The Arts and the Common Core

Bruce Taylor

You’re invited, August 19, 1:00 p.m. to hear from Bruce Taylor, Arts in Education scholar and national presenter, about how the arts can be seen as contributing to overall student achievement and preparing our youth to be college and career ready.

 

August 19, 1:00-2:00 p.m.

Register today before the spots fill up!

https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/350292575

 

Maine Music Educators Roundtable

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

As a supplement to the series being presented by the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative this Spring, MAAI will be holding a webinar entitled, “Maine Music Education Roundtable” on Tuesday, May 20 from 3:30 to 4:30. Hosted by Rob Westerberg, choral director at York High School, this webinar is being held in direct response to music educators in the field who are asking subject specific questions pertaining to their own classrooms and issues confronting them in the current educational climate. The roundtable format will intentionally make this hour conversational in nature, leading to what will no doubt be a rich dialogue around current topics in Music Education. Topics will likely include issues around proficiency, standards, creation and assessment of individual student learning targets, PK-12 curricular alignment and advocacy. All attendees will also be encouraged to ask their own questions, voice their own concerns, and share their own perspectives. Roundtable guests will include music educators from across the state. Please plan to join us so that YOUR voice can be heard as well!

• To join the meeting, please click here.
• Enter as a guest and sign in using your first and last name please.
• Click enter room.
• Please be wired and do not use a wireless connect.
• No telephone is required. (There is no call-in number).

I suggest that you join the webinar at 3:20 and go to the top left corner of you screen, click on the drop down menu, Meeting, Audio Setup Wizard and follow the directions to check your audio.

LD 1422 Webinar

MAAI webinar, May 7

The third of a series of four webinars for the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative was held on Wednesday, May 7, entitled “LD 1422: digging deeper into the new Proficiency expectations for Maine’s schools and Arts classrooms”. In coming up with this particular webinar, facilitators Catherine Ring and Rob Westerberg were reacting to what they both believed has been a lot of misunderstanding and a great lack of clarity around the new law which states that all High Schools will be issuing diplomas, “based on student demonstration of proficiency”. The hour with nearly 20 attendees, including the Maine Department of Education new Visual and Performing Arts Specialist, Mr. Kevin Facer, allowed the opportunity to de-mystify it, and to discuss its ramifications as it pertains to Visual and Performing Arts.

The first part gave an overview of LD 1422, with links to valuable resources at the Maine Department of Education. Catherine and Rob went through the important details pertaining to how it relates to VPA, the Maine Guiding Principles which all students will be required to meet, and a few thoughts around the concept of “multiple pathways” to demonstrate proficiency. An extended conversation was had around proficiency in the arts and what that actually can mean in practice. Information very specific about what that looks like in the classroom, and articulation of the next steps for everyone to get there, regardless of where you are presently.

Finally, there was a give and take conversation around relevant questions and observations from the MAAI Teacher leaders last Summer. Some of these included, “Once established, this will inform curricular and instructional decisions?”, “How do we establish proficiencies while leaving room for creativity?”, “You cannot define proficiency until the “vagueness” is taken out of the standards… is this a road we want to go down?” and “How do we find time to do everything and teach at the same time?” Along the way, webinar attendees asked some very pointed questions as well and shared some great insights.

In debunking myths or misinterpretations, and showing how the Arts can proactively move toward proficiency, the hope is that attendees and those utilizing the archive and meeting plans can get a leg up, perhaps even on the other content areas in our own buildings, and truly be leaders as we move toward this next chapter in Maine education. In this vein, it is strongly encouraged that arts teachers spend some time viewing the archive: the live links alone will make this worth your while, while the conversations will add clarity for what is expected of arts teachers in the months and years to come.

On Wednesday, June 4, we will be holding a related webinar, featuring the ongoing work MAAI has undertaken creating a rich Resource Bank for the Visual and Performing Arts. Please plan on joining Catherine and Rob from 3:30 to 4:30 on that first Wednesday of June. In the meantime, you can access the archive of the May 7 webinar at http://stateofmaine.adobeconnect.com/maaimay2014/. You can access the professional development meeting plans that accompany the webinar at http://mainearts.maine.gov/Pages/Education/MAAI-Webinars (available tomorrow). You may utilize with this with your building and district VPA colleagues.

Common Core and the Arts Webinar

Maine Arts Assessment Initiative Webinar to be held – April 8

Rob Westerberg and Catherine Ring will be hosting their second webinar in a series of four for 2014 as part of the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative (MAAI).  The webinar entitled Common Core and the Arts will take place on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 from 3:30 – 4:30.  Primary discussions will be based around:

• Clarification of Common Core, it’s origins and implementation
• Connections to Visual And Performing Arts
• Ramifications for our programs

The overarching goals of this webinar will be to demystify the Common Core as it pertains to Arts programs in Maine. Strategies for linking with it as well as strategies for maintaining and building on our capacity to reach our own students in our own subject areas will be discussed as well.

Guests will include ….

Marcia McCaffrey, Arts Consultant from the New Hampshire Department of Education and Jenni Null, Fine Arts Coordinator, School Administrative District #61 (Lake Region School District: Bridgton, Casco, Naples, Sebago). The duo will provide valuable ideas, information and food for thought!

Marcia McCaffrey

Jenni Null

To join the meeting, go online to http://stateofmaine.adobeconnect.com/maaiapril2014/. Please click here for more information about other webinars and the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative. For best success please join the system 10 minutes early to make sure you can hear, and use a hard-wire connection (not wireless).

Please be sure to join for what promises to be an engaging, insightful hour on the topic that will continue to impact every one of us as arts educators in the state of Maine! One contact hour is available for participating. If you miss the session live it will be archived afterwards for your viewing. Please watch the blog for the link to it.

Rob Westerberg and Catherine Ring

Maine Arts Assessment Initiative, an initiative of the Maine Arts Commission and the Maine Department of Education, with partners: ACTEM (Association of Computer Technology Educators of Maine), District 3 Music Educators, MAAE (Maine Alliance for Arts Education), MAEA (Maine Art Education Association), MECA (Maine College of Art), MMEA (Maine Music Educators Association), MLTI (Maine Learning Technology Initiative), New England Institute for Teacher Education, and USM (University of Southern Maine).

 

 

March Webinar Overview

Facilitated by Catherine and Rob

This was written by York High School music educator and Maine Arts Assessment Initiative leadership team member Rob Westerberg as a follow-up to the webinar held on March 5.

On Wednesday March 5th, Catherine Ring and I facilitated the first of four MAAI sponsored Webinars for 2014. This one was on “Outreach and Arts Education Leadership”. We were joined by guests Shannon Campell, visual arts educator from Ellsworth High School, Pam Kinsey, music educator for the Easton schools, and by Argy Nestor, Director of Arts Education from the Maine Arts Commission. After tying up a few technology blips, we ended up having a great fifty minute dialogue around the primary topics of the day:

• What is “outreach” as it pertains to the arts?
• What does “leadership” in the arts look like?
• How has the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative worked to develop both outreach and leadership?
• Why are outreach and leadership essential?
• Implications and next steps for Maine’s Arts educators

Takeaways were many, but the essence of the broad message is that we have to be proactive, not reactive as we move forward in Arts Education in Maine, and many ideas, strategies and approaches are at our fingertips for doing so. Along those lines, we have put together a pair of meeting plans that you can implement with your colleagues during professional development days in your own schools and districts. Be sure to utilize these if you are looking for professional development ideas or an alternate agenda item for your own district’s Inservice Day; bring your colleagues together and use the webinar archive and the meeting plan to help lead the discussion.

To access the webinar archive: http://mainearts.maine.gov/Pages/Education/MAAI-Webinars
To access the meeting plan for this session:

The next Webinar will take place on Tuesday, April 8th from 3:30 to 4:30 as Catherine and I dig deeper into “Visual and Performing Arts and the Common Core”. More details and instructions on how to log in will be made available shortly. Please be sure to join us if you can for a topic that certainly impacts us all.

Maine Arts Assessment Initiative Webinars

Webinar series starts Wednesday, March 5

Arts educators Rob Westerberg and Catherine Ring will be hosting the first webinar in a series of four during the next four months. This is the second series offered through the Maine Arts Assessment Initiative (MAAI).  The webinar:

Outreach and Arts Education Leadership

 Wednesday, March 5, 2014

3:30 – 4:30

Primary discussions will be based around:

• Why are outreach and leadership essential to the success of visual and performing arts in the 21st century?
• How has the Maine Arts Assessment initiative worked to developed both?
• What does “leadership” look like in the Arts?
• What is outreach as it pertains to Arts Assessment and Leadership?

As the Maine Arts Assessment continues in its third year, both of these topics have been focal points. Engaging participants in dialogue around these, and discovering how they can better engage both elements themselves will be takeaways from this webinar.

Please be sure to join them for what promises to be an engaging, insightful hour on the topic that will continue to impact every one of us as arts educators in the state of Maine!

Watch the blog and the Maine Arts Education list-serv during the next week for the details to learn how to join the webinar.

Future webinars are scheduled for April 8, May 7, and June 4. One contact hour is available to participants. All webinars will be archived if you can not be present for the live webinar.

MAAI is an initiative of the Maine Department of Education with contributing partners: Maine Arts Commission, Maine Art Education Association, Maine Music Educators Association, New England Institute for Teacher Education, University of Southern Maine, Maine Learning Technology Initiative, and the Maine Alliance for Arts and Education.

Lynn Tuttle Presentation at Arts Conference

Lynn Tuttle will be traveling to Maine to present at the Opening Session at the Arts Education: Leading the Way conference on October 24, UMaine, Collins Center for the Arts. Her presentation entitled Maine and the National Core Arts Standards will provide information for Arts educators on the National Core Arts Standards (NCAS). Lynn will also be doing a follow-up session at the conference for those who wish to go deeper into the conversation about the NCAS.

To help prepare for her visit or if you can not attend the conference but wish to hear Lynn speak on the National Core Arts Standards please join this webinar that is an interview with Lynn. I realize that it is not scheduled at an ideal time for teachers but perhaps you can pass the information on to your administrators to participate in the webinar.

“An Interview with Lynn Tuttle about the Core Arts Standards: Embracing a New Paradigm in Arts Education”

Arts Education Policy Review
Volume 114, Issue 3, 2013

Thursday, August 29  at 2pm ET/ 1pm

Join us as author Jared R. Rawlings interviews Lynn Tuttle, Director of Arts Education, Arizona Department of Education, on the rationale, emergence of media arts, the writing process, impact, and future direction of new core arts standards.

Register now for the latest webinar in our Know More series.

http://www.artsschoolsnetwork.org/know-more.html

Cross Discipline Literacy Network

Webinar

We know Spring is coming and so is another wonderful opportunity to connect with other Arts educators in the third Cross Discipline Literacy Network webinar.  Even if you have not joined the conversation before please feel free to “drop in” and learn about what literacy in the Arts classroom is and can be.

Thursday, March 21st, 3 PM to 4PM
                                                       The “L” iteracy Word

The following is for connecting to the webinar:
To join the meeting:

1.    Go online to http://stateofmaine.adobeconnect.com/pk202112912/

2.    Select ‘Enter as a Guest’ and type your name in the corresponding field.

3.    To listen and speak during the meeting, you will need to be connected by telephone:

·         The meeting can call you at a phone number you provide at log-in, or

·         You can dial directly into the meeting: 1-877-455-0244, Passcode 8332185782.  (Use this second option when joining the meeting from sites where your phone can only be reached through a switchboard.)