Introducing the Art of Ed Community (Ep. 436)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for our teachers. The show is produced by the Art of Education University, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

We are very excited about the episode today, not just me, but the entire AOEU team. Amanda teased this a few weeks back on the Mailbag episode, but today we can officially finally talk about the Art of Ed online community. Now, the Art of Ed community is a dedicated space just for art teachers where you can engage with other art teachers, have discussions, have fun, talk about what we do, and it’s all free from the distractions and the mess that is social media right now.

The community has officially been up and running for just about a week now, and it has been a great space. We have thousands of art teachers there, and the interactions we are seeing are amazing. I love it, as Amanda has put it so succinctly. It is your new favorite place on the internet.

Now, in just a minute, I’m going to bring on Jen Leban, who is our online community manager in charge of all of this. Jen has been on the podcast quite a few times, including the past couple of months, so her voice may be starting to sound familiar. But she has done it all in education, middle school art and tech. She’s been an instructional coach, she’s been a media specialist, and now we’re thrilled to have her running the online community and joining us here today.

So before she comes on though, I want to just say on a personal note how excited I am for this community. If you listen to this show regularly, you know a couple of things about me. First, I’m not a fan of social media, but second, and probably more importantly, I think that making connections is vital to what we do as teachers.

And that’s part of the reason I love doing the NOW Conference so much. But those ideas kind of between social media and making connections, they’re there. So it’s tough for me to not like one and like the other. It’s kind of a contrast. But I am excited to see that there is a community to kind of bring together all different art teachers without the toxicity and negativity and distractions that I would argue are inherent to social media.

So just thinking back about what communities look like in art ed for the past few years, the past decade or so, we’ve gone from art teacher blogs to Facebook discussions. A few of us gave it a good run on Twitter once upon a time. Now Instagram and TikTok seem to be a little bit more popular, but all of those have their drawbacks. And I’m not saying that the Art of Ed community is going to be perfect, but I will say I’m optimistic about what we can create because we have an amazing community of art teachers who want to connect, who want to help each other, want to lift each other up, and now we have a place to do exactly that.

Jen has been very intentional about how she’s building this community, what she wants it to be, and very thoughtful about what teachers can get out of it. So she’s thrilled about the launch of the community. I am thrilled to have her on the show to tell us about it. Let me bring her on.

Jen Leban is joining me now. Jen, welcome back to the show. How are you?

Thank you. I am good. How are you?

I’m great. I know we are both excited. Everybody on our team is excited because the official AOEU community launched last week. We are very excited about that. Something we’ve been planning for months, something we’ve been really, we’ve had ready to go for a while and it’s very excited to finally do the official launch. So I guess we should just start at the very beginning. So can you tell us what is the Art of Ed community?

Yeah. So the way I talk to people outside of my job is I say I kind of run a group on social media. So the Art of Ed community, it’s a dedicated online professional space where teachers can engage in discussions, they can network and they can have fun, but without the distraction of traditional social media. So we all know that a lot of things have become kind of a dumpster fire. So this is our space. So there’s an activity feed that will look similar to a LinkedIn or a Facebook, except the benefit is that it’s not LinkedIn or Facebook.

Can I just say that that is my favorite part, is that it is not Facebook.

Yeah, it’s its own thing. Just art teachers doing the art teacher thing, and we can be honest and vulnerable without having to worry about randos, anonymous haters, weird relatives chiming in uninvited. I’m really hoping that the community can help mitigate burnout by supporting art teachers and helping them feel like they’re not so alone because being an art teacher can be kind of lonely sometimes.

Yeah, it definitely can. We talk all the time about just being on an island and just not having anybody to do your professional development with or not having anybody to collaborate with. And I love the idea of fostering those connections and like you said, avoiding burnout. I think that’s a great thing that we probably haven’t talked enough about, but when we can make those connections, it really makes our job not only easier but a lot more enjoyable as well. It’s more fulfilling when you can find someone else to connect with.

Now, I said we’ve been working on this for months and months. Can you give us the timeline? Yes. Forever of just what has happened with the community, like how and when different things have been developed, everything that led up to the launch last week.

So I was hired by AOEU at the beginning of June, but AOEU has spent the last 10 years building a really wide network of audiences from Instagram followers, FLEX and PRO product users, alumni. And AOEU has pockets of time where audience members have interacted like the NOW Conference and things like that, but there hasn’t been one main place or a sustained effort where everybody can come together. So that’s kind of where this comes from. And one of the winning features was that there is an app and you can use your phone, yay.

Okay. I have the app on my phone and I just have to say every time I open it, it’s so beautiful. This high quality photo of oil pastels takes up my whole phone with cute little AOEU palette logo on it. It just makes me very happy every time I open the app.

Yes. Yeah, that’s the splash frame I think. I don’t know. I forget the fancy name for it, but yes. No, I agree. Every time I see it, it does. It just looks so bright and colorful and happy.

So yeah, we worked really hard basically all of this summer. Other people got summer break, but nope. We were spending the summer building community structure. Not only things like the visuals and the branding, but just like coming up with and wordsmithing community guidelines, trying to anticipate FAQs, putting descriptions of spaces in how everything’s going to be organized and structured. There was a lot of back and forth even just coming up with the messaging that we were going to use when this finally came out.

So even things that seem really simple to an outsider, how do we sign up or account creation, it was a whole big thing. I mean, you know part of it and how that happened but we probably switched paths three or four times before we got to where we are now. So everything was very thoughtful, like well-thought out.

And I was just going to say, I think everybody on the team was very intentional about making sure that this is a positive collaborative space. And so I think the community guidelines and sort of talking about how we want everybody to interact and how we want this to be a positive place was really kind of guiding the development. And that’s something that, and I think everybody on the team is pretty proud of, and hopefully that comes to fruition with the new influx of all of the art teachers. But I trust our teachers. I think it will.

Yeah. I mean, so far it’s been amazing. So we did our soft launch in August as part of the NOW Conference, and we slowly started letting people in. We’re over 600 members right now.

I’m very excited to see everyone who comes in and see what they can add to it. I think it’s going to be great. So I would love to just get your perspective for the people who have started with it. People have been using it for a little while. What has been happening at the beginning? What does it look like so far? What kind of benefits are teachers seeing being part of this community?

Yeah. So as in my role as online community manager, it’s my job to keep things going, keep things engaging, keep people talking, promoting connections, finding common interests. So community members, if you are in the community, you have the option to create your own posts, engage in discussions of your own choosing. But I do also have a regular cadence or a schedule to try to post once a week. We have big discussions. We have little questions that people can pop in and answer.

But we have special areas. They’re called spaces for high school teachers, middle school teachers and elementary teachers. We have basically, there’s a set schedule if you want to engage in that way, but if you also need in time support like just in time, that’s why we have the app too. You can pop in and you can ask a quick question, and I’ve gotten feedback from people that that has been really helpful.

If you don’t like that kind of asynchronous format and you want to connect with people directly or live, we actually have monthly art club meetings. And we were actually working on, we’re going to do a pop-up art studio that we’re experimenting with where we can all sit and gather and just work on our art together.

So information on these events, even though like art club is a regularly scheduled once a month event, sometimes these other things like the pop-up art studio is just literally like pop-up. Yeah, let’s do this thing. But we have a whole event section in the community that you can go to and you can get information about that and you can add it to your calendar, you can RSVP, and we have weekly community challenges to win prizes and sweet swag.

So currently once a week. I know we all want swag. Come on. Currently once-

Well, I was just going to say I’m upset because I’ve been here for months in this community, and I have not received any swag yet.

You haven’t won yet? I’m sorry, Tim. I don’t think you’re eligible.

But anyway, go ahead. I’m sorry to interrupt with my grievances.

It’s okay. No, currently I do a once a week community challenge, which is a little task for something to participate in the community, and then I do a random number generator to pick winners. And I send them stickers and a little postcard, note card, little thank you for being a part of the community. But we have plans for expansion, so currently it’s like once a quarter. We want to pick from those community challenge winners. Oh my gosh, we have badges, so you win badges for things and you just put them in your profile.

I do have some badges, so I’m happy about that.

You do get badges, Tim, yeah. In fact, we also use you as our Guinea pig to test out reporting people and kicking people out, didn’t we?

I can see where my use is for this community.

So I will share sort of my experience in the community as we close out the show, but I think it’s a great place. But I want to hear your perspective as far as what teachers can get out of the community, maybe your pitch for why teachers should sign up for this.

Yeah. If you had asked me maybe a couple of years ago about like, oh, there’s this new community platform and there’s this thing, I probably would’ve rolled my eyes and went like, oh, I need another thing.

Yeah, we don’t need another thing.

To be honest. But a lot has happened recently, and I think my pitch to teachers is that you should sign up because you were a Facebook user. You were in Facebook groups, or maybe you were on Twitter or other social media in order to find people, but you got frustrated with the garbage fire that is currently social media.

So the Art of Ed community answers the question, where’s everybody going to hang out? If you haven’t already abandoned your stuff, abandon ship and come here. Come to us. We’re the place to be. I deleted my Twitter a couple of years ago. I haven’t looked back. I technically have a Facebook account because sometimes you need to click on a link and get to something. It’s just a shell for those things, but it’s not on my phone or bookmark.

But instead of doom scrolling on social media, you come to the Art of Ed community. Like you said, there’s that colorful picture of the oil pastels or whatever, and you can feel positive for a change. Even if you’re going to the community to express a struggle or an issue you’re having in the classroom, people have suggestions for solutions. So even if you go there and not feeling positive, you can leave being like, okay, here’s a strategy I can try. It helps to make you feel like you have control.

Yeah, exactly. I was going to say it’s a space to commiserate if you need to for just a little bit, but there are so many solutions and so many people that want to help as well, and I love that as part of the community.

Yes. So I’m a 20-year plus teaching veteran, and that’s my opinion as a crabby old teacher. But I do think that the community, it really has something different to offer to everybody. So if you’re a brand new teacher, you can find this has already been happening in the community. You can find strategies and tips and tricks for everyday art room struggles.

Right when the school year started, we had teachers that were like, “What do you do on the first day for a lesson?” And everybody came in and was like, here’s my file. Here’s this thing you can do. Here’s this fun game. And it was like, oh my gosh, this is wonderful. If you are a newer teacher finishing up your first few years in the classroom, you’re not a crabby old lady like me, you can share what you’re doing in class. We have teachers sharing things that are going on.

Oh my gosh, I am in love with all of the people sharing classroom setup pictures and things they have been making and doing. That’s been so fun and inspiring. And that’s the thing is you can go there and you get these new fresh ideas and sparks, all these different iterations and things that you can do and it really helps to keep the joy of teaching alive.

Well, absolutely. And like you said, the variety of perspectives is so important. We see us crabby old art teachers, but then you also see people who are brand new just coming in to start everything, and then you have everyone in between. And just that mixture, I believe, is so powerful to get all of those different perspectives, help each other out. And I think that’s where a lot of the value lies.

Agreed. And I like to think that the Art of Ed community is a place where you don’t have to feel silly asking a question, that we really are just there to support each other, not to shame anyone or make them feel like, really, we just want to help.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Real quick, how can teachers sign up? I feel like that’s an important thing that we haven’t yet covered.

There will be a, we call it a tile, but when you log into your AOEU account and it shows you the NOW Conference or FLEX and PRO, there is actually a space for the Art of Ed community. So that would be an easy way to find out. But if you want to directly go in there, the address is community.theartofeducation.edu, and that will take you to the landing page. But yeah, you’ll also, it’s there in AOEU, log into your account.

We do recommend, I’m not policing this, you do you what you want, but I recommend that you use a personal email to sign up for the community. That way if you leave your school district, then they’re doing that, you don’t accidentally lose your community account and have to start all over again. So you can change your email once you’re in there, like it’s possible. But I’m just my advice from crabby old art teacher land, use a personal email address if you’re not sure.

Yeah, absolutely. Then I guess last thing, I love to close every podcast with some advice. For teachers who are joining the community, once you make your account, once you sign up, I want to ask you for three things that teachers should do to really dive into the community and join the conversation.

All right. First of all, complete your profile. Just add your profile pic, add your short bio, maybe even a little banner image going to be spiffy. But the default avatars in Mighty are these gradient blurbs. And when you’re trying to talk to somebody that’s a gradient blurb and not like a… It’s kind of like trying to teach to a bunch of black screens on Zoom for those of us that are still traumatized by that. So please…

Unfortunately.

Fix it up. Yeah.

Yeah. Can I just say though, I put something about being an art history nerd in my short bio, and I have found so many friends already who would just DM me. I mean like, I love art history too, and we have so many conversations going on. So it seems like not a big deal to put something in your bio, but I’ve found so many friends just from adding that to my profile.

Bringing people together. Yeah. Mighty actually has an AI component when you go into members and it will suggest people for you. So yes, if you are an art history nerd, what’s our other major thing? Oh, birds. Those of you that love birds, because that’s a thing here, put it in your bio. Yeah, so that’s the first item.

The second thing I recommend is you want to complete the form to get your verified badge. So we have verified badges in the community. It’s a form that gets emailed to you after you complete your account. So you create your account, it automatically comes to you in your email box. But having the verified badge on your profile, it lets everybody know that you are who you say you are. It helps us to build trust and safety amongst our members, but it also makes you eligible to win prizes. So in order to win prizes in the community, you have to have your verified badge.

Okay. That’s fair.

If for no other reason, that’s how you get your swag.

Is that the problem? Is that why I’m not winning any prizes? No, I know I’m verified, so it’s got to be something else. Okay, number three. Number three.

Third, yes. The third thing I would suggest, you’re new to the community. You came in, make a post. I know it’s intimidating at first when you come in and you’re like, I don’t want to say something dumb. I don’t want to ask something that’s already been asked. Seriously, we’re not about that. So just come in, we’re cool with it.

And just post, hi, here’s my name. Here’s where I teach. So good to be here and you’ll feel the love immediately from everyone welcoming you.

Yeah. We usually introduce yourself. Where are you at? That helps a lot. People get excited if you’re from their hood. What grades you teach? Maybe let us know what your goals are and how we can support you, like, “Hey, my name’s Jen and I’m feeling really burnt out. Help me love teaching art again.” Like, yay. Or my name’s Jen. I’m really struggling with classroom management. What do I do? You’ll probably find that you’re not alone. It’s such a good place for validation.

Yes, yes, for sure. And I think we talk about being positive and uplifting and sometimes just making those connections. Even if you connect through struggles, that can be worthwhile and that can make you feel better because like you said, you know that you’re not alone. So that’s some great advice.

So Jen, thank you so much for coming on, introducing the community to us. We really appreciate it. If you have any last pushes, any last words of advice, anything else you want to say before we get out of here?

I think people that are hesitant to post or worried about, this is my job to manage the online community, I got your back. Nobody’s going to mess with you. This is my job. I got you.

I love it. I love it. No, you need to put community bouncer in your profile. I think that’ll be…

My bio.

Cool. All right. Well, Jen, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on, and we will see you in the Art of Ed community.

Woo-hoo!

I hope in that discussion, Jen and I covered everything that makes us so excited about the Art of Ed community. One thing that Jen mentioned almost as an aside actually, was just the idea that you can discover your joy in teaching there. Now, I’m not going to promise that the community is going to solve all of your problems or cure all of your ills, but I will say that I think those connections, you can make those connections I talked about at the beginning of the show, they can help you enjoy teaching more.

You can take part in discussions in the community. Some are meaningful, some are just fun. But we’re also going to have live events. We’re going to have poll questions. We’re going to have so many more things that you can do, something new every day. Trends in art ed, best practices, suggestions, ideas, help, and as Jen said, just-in-time support if and when you need it. So we’ll make sure that we link to the community in the show notes so you can join, interact, and be part of the discussion whenever you want to do that. I hope we see you there.

Art Ed Radio is produced by the Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you for listening. Next week, we’ll be back with The Mailbag. You can ask Amanda and me some questions by emailing timothybogatz@theartofeducation.edu or podcasts@theartofeducation.edu, or even better yet, ask those questions in the community when you were there. All right, we’ll talk to you next week.