For those of you on Twitter, Chelsie Meyer and I started up #ArtsEdChat this summer. It was a great time for conversation between art educators from around the country on topics such as classroom management, lesson plan ideas and technology in the art room. However, as the school year started back up, it seemed more challenging to find the time each week to be on Twitter during the designated chat time. Let’s face it, life is busy! We all have a million and one things to do at our schools each day and then a million more to do once we get home. We thought that the 4:30 ET was difficult for people not on the east coast, so we moved it to 8:30 ET. That time seemed even more challenging as the number of participants drastically dropped.

So, we decided to take a break and then scale back. Starting this month we will be running #ArtsEdChat once a month rather than each week. It will be the 2nd Thursday of each month at 4:30 ET. We are also going to try incorporating a wikispace for the first time. This will be a place for people to volunteer to help lead the discussions and also add any topics they would like to see covered. We know there will be some months that people can participate and some where prior commitments get in the way. The new wiki system will allow people to "sign-up" in a way to help keep the discussion going. We got this idea from a #libchat wiki that was amazing and hope it works well for us art teachers too.

Our next #ArtsEdChat will take place on Thursday, December 13th at 4:30 ET. Please check out the #artsedchat wiki at http://www.artsedchat.wikispaces.net/. Sign-up to help lead the discussion! As we start using this wiki, we’d like to archive discussions so that the information can be shared easily and accessed by all. If you can’t join us during the actual chat time please think about joining what Chelsie calls the "After Party!" Search the hashtag to see what was discussed. Keep the conversation going by adding your thoughts or commenting on other posts at a time that is more convenient to you. We really do love #ArtsEdChat and hope that these new changes will be improvements to get more people involved! If you have other suggestions or thoughts please add a comment below and we will try to accommodate them. Hope to see you next Thursday afternoon for our December #ArtsEdChat!

Imagine you were going to introduce yourself to someone that you had never met before, but could only give them five words that best describe you. What five words would communicate the essence of who you are?  This is the challenge that I gave to my students last week.

The idea came about when we started working on our first set of Artist Trading Cards for the ATC school exchange.  The theme for this month is, "All about ME: Introductions and Goals for the Year."  When I first told students about the exchange I wanted them to have a lot of independence.  I told them they could do anything they wanted on the card and use any medium that was interesting, as long as the card was about themselves.  However, as they began working we realized that the cards were very pretty, but they could do a better job of introducing themselves visually on the ATCs.  That's when I asked them to re-think how they were approaching these and start again by brainstorming a list of words about themselves. After they each had a big list of words, I asked them to narrow it down to their top five.  It was fun to hear what student's chose as their words.  Not only did I learn a lot about each student through this activity, but they also go to know each other as peers as we shared our words in class.  Hopefully the students that receive our cards will enjoy them too!

By the way, my five words are "art, teacher, family, love, learner," and my sample card for the project is the photo above.  Not only did students have to think of their five words, but they also needed to figure out how they could make a symbol that illustrated each word and how to put them all together in an interesting way. I think my students learned a lot from of these 2 1/2" X 3 1/2" miniature works of art!

So, what are your five words? I'd love for you to share them!