Category - Professional Development

At the turn of the millennia, while the world was rejoicing in making it successfully through Y2K without disaster, I was excited and rejoicing in my new world as a budding music educator. In January 2000, I attended my first-ever professional conference as a freshman in college, M.E.N.C. (Music Educators National Conference).

Here we are 17 years later, and since my professional focus has shifted to piano rather than choral education, I’m soon headed to the 2017 Music Teachers National Association Conference in Baltimore, MD.

Conferences.

Are.

Awesome.

I love every minute – I really do, and that’s why I want to share with you a bit on the topic today. You may be wondering, though, what I mean by “managing” conferences.

Put it this way – do you KNOW how many different topics are getting thrown into your brain before lunch?! Ha! If you’ve ever attended a conference, you know what I mean!

We are presented with so much good information it can be easy to walk away and not implement half of what we want to accomplish.

Michael Hyatt hits it spot on when he says:

Information you can’t find or use isn’t information. It’s noise.

So, we need to plan how to take in the information in a way that doesn’t just add to the stack of cool ideas that never get used. In other words, we don’t want all the information to get “lost in the noise.”

I want you to walk away from a conference feeling like all you’ve learned is easily retrievable and, in turn, useful. I’ll also give you a little peek into my own process, including how I utilize Evernote.

First, a little conference-attendance pep-talk.

Continue reading