Greetings from Baltimore!

Can’t attend the National Art Education Association (NAEA) conference this year? No problem, we’ve got you covered.

The newly-opened pagoda in Patterson Park gives a nice view of downtown Baltimore. Taken by Phil G. http://www.flickr.com/photos/phil_g/490952275

Since Museum-Ed didn’t do a conference of its own this year, we thought we would try to bring other conferences to you. Starting Tuesday, April 13 with the NAEA Museum Education Division pre-conference we (and by we I mean me and a group of volunteers we’re calling the Tech Mob) will be pushing all the content we can get our hands on out to you, whether you are sitting in another session in Baltimore or on the other coast.

I have often felt there ought to be a way to broadcast and document all the great stuff that happens at national conferences. I have also often gone around begging for handouts and PowerPoints from cool presentations so that I could share it with everyone looking at the Museum-Ed Web site. I had some successes, but with all the new tools (o.k., they are new to me) like Twitter, this year we are really trying to take it to the next level. And the great thing is, everyone can join in. We hope they do. Comment on the blogs, on the photos on Flickr, write on our Facebook wall, and tweet using the hashtag: #NAEA10.

Oh, and if you’ve ever wondered what all the hype is about social media, this is also your chance to find out. We aren’t just interested in helping you access conference content, we are also interested in helping you dip your toes into the social media pool, if you aren’t wet already. Consider this a model for using social media to extend your reach, and we will try to live up to the claim.

A special thanks to the NAEA Tech Mob volunteers: Will Crow of the Met, Jeanne Hoel of Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Willamarie Moore of MFA Boston, Erin Noseworthy of the Hunter Museum, and Nicole Stutzman of Dallas Museum of Art.

We are all hoping it goes so well that we’ll want to do it all over again when we head out to Los Angeles for the American Association of Museum conference in May.

Archived Comments

1. Kate Rawlinson Says:
   April 13th, 2010 at 2:46 pm FANTASTIC start Kris and the NAEA Tech Mob. I can’t make it there until midnight tomorrow, but you’re getting me excited to be there and take part. Great job! Now, if we can just get NAEA to edge into the 21st century to provide internet access in the meeting rooms for presenters to use…