There are a couple of online professional development events coming up in the next few weeks that are worth looking into to rejuvenate yourself over the summer months.
The first is Catie Dwinal’s Music Education Motivation Day (musedmot) on Saturday, June 29. The official website is http://musedmot.webs.com/. If you do not know Catie, then you need to begin following her on twitter (@musiccargirl14) and check out the amazing ways she uses technology in her general music classroom. She is “The Quaver Queen” as I have termed her as she knows their supplemental curriculum thoroughly. She also
utilizes iPads and numerous apps in her music classroom for composition and music creation. The musedmot day, in her words, “is a day using the power of social media to regain our motivation and make it through the school year. Let’s use the Music Teachers group on Facebook, let’s start some Google Hangouts and let’s have an all day conversation on Twitter with #musedchat.”
“Thinking about how we motivate ourselves one big solution comes up, conferences. Those amazing get togethers where we can meet with our peers to discuss current music education issues, learn new things to bring back to our students, and get inspired to go back and do what we love to do again. Not all of us can drop what we’re doing and attend one of these on a whim even if we so desperately need it. Through the power of social networking we get just a little bit of that motivation to keep going back inside of us. We can connect with our colleagues, collect new ideas, and get feedback on our own work.”
Check out the website and plan on spending some time on June 29 to network with other music educators for free, while relaxing on your couch with a nice drink.
The second is “The Virtual Music Education Conference” which is being put together by Fun Music Company. They have taken many famous names and gurus of music education and put them all together to present at a virtual music conference. The cost is minimal when you think about how much you can access and learn from this conference and you will have no travel costs. As listed on their website:
“The Virtual Music Education Conference is a gathering of the best and most influential people in Music Education. We’ve set out to bring together not just the best minds, but the best people to help YOU with your music teaching. You don’t need to attend at a specific time: you just login anytime after the release date [July 27] and you can watch or listen to the presentations.”
Both of these opportunities can assist with your rejuvenation of teaching that every music educator needs over the summer months. Check out both events today!
