Don’t let the drawing curriculum die #artednow

On Saturday I took my expertise in the drawing curriculum to a totally new experience in my education world – an online conference!

I’ve been to many conferences, mainly art-based and all have been where we have been physically present.

But last year I was asked to take part in this online conference organized by American-based The Art of Education (AOE), an online resource for art teachers providing online classes, teaching materials, lessons, videos, and much more.

I had previously written 2 blog posts for them:

How to help your students get into art school.

Don’t let drawing disappear from your curriculum.

Over 2,200 people attended the conference online from around the world – from the comfort of their own homes!

I presented in the first hour so that the time difference was manageable (10am CST, making it 4pm GMT) on the subject “The Best Ways to Keep Your Drawing Curriculum Current”

“Drawing these days means a whole host of things to different artists and designers, from the tried and true pencil realism to experimental ideas like drawing with light and other 3-dimensional applications.

Join Julie Read from Portfolio Oomph to explore what drawing can mean for you, and how you can use the medium in your own classroom to widen the student experience.”

I created the video way back in December, 10 minutes long that was streamed on the day to the attendees.

Whilst the video was streaming, I was standing by, on Facebook Messenger, to answer any questions, live.

There were a number of questions and to be honest, it was such good fun!

The Best Ways to Keep Your Drawing Curriculum Current.

It was great to be connected to so many other individuals around the world all fighting for the same cause – to get creative in schools really working.

And I say fight because in this climate it really feels like a fight – against STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) when all these subjects need creativity to thrive.

We need STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) if our young people are to stand a chance in life these days.

By studying art, it doesn’t mean you are necessarily going to be an artist, but it equips you to think creatively, out of the box, literally, all good skills required by many professions these days.

We had some superb comments as Twitter took off and below here are some of them. Follow me on Twitter.

My video presentation is available excusively to students on my PLAN CREATE SUCCEED portfolio preparation course. 

If you were at the conference or want to comment on how you feel about drawing and STEAM, do leave a comment below.