Last week I attended an online art ed conference hosted by The Art of Education. I registered early for $89 bucks, so I got that sweet swag you see above, as well as some digital swag including handouts and some discounts at some decent retailers like Blick art and a great discount to Arts and Activity magazine which I will be taking advantage of!

I truly enjoyed the convenience of doing a PD and conference from home at my computer, and I also enjoyed the format in which they chose to present the information. Doing short TED-like talks was a great way to deliver a lot of info in a little time, and we all have the ‘afterpass‘ to revisit the information AND the presenters put up additional information as well! Sooooo, if we need more, we can get more. Great!

I will say one thing I would have like to had beforehand would have been some of their handouts. I’m the type of gal who likes to follow along with the handouts when someone references them, so I felt a little wobbly at times- but really it was not that big of a deal due to the speed of the presentations. I probably would have been wobbly regardless. Ha! Drink your coffee woman and keep up! 😉

Well as far as the swag goes, I am most excited about the stuff Blick Art gave us. They also did a lesson on it during the conference. Basically it is this lesson on the golden ratio, incorporating math (geometry) real hardcore like. It can be taken down a few notches for the youngsters, but I like the idea of using this for my older kiddos. It uses Roylco tissue circles (which I will be buying out of pocket due to no budget), gridded paper, and glue sticks. I am excited to give it a whirl, especially with my handicap in mathematics… this should be interesting… haha.

Anyway, I am glad I gave the AOE conference a shot this summer. Can’t wait for the winter one! And then the next summer one, and then the next winter one! … Gues I always have PAEA and NAEA conferences to hold me over too. 😉