Growing into #CreativelyConnectedEdu

We started #K12ArtChat with the idea that it would be great to connect art teachers for a positive conversations around relevant topics. That little idea grew into the amazing #K12ArtChat professional learning network which is now comprised of creative educators from all content areas. Then along the way we found that not only did our PLN want to chat on twitter with our guest hosts they wanted to hear them! So this summer Susan Riley the CEO of Education Closet and the official sponsor of the chat gave us a call (on the 4th of July) and said how about adding a podcast component to #K12ArtChat. We loved the idea and Education Closet was on board to do the behind the scenes work such as editing, transcription and promoting, which really made it a no-brainer for us. Education Closet has so many resources and avenues for creative teachers to make arts integration happen in their classrooms, that the title for the podcast came to us with ease.......The Creatively Connected Classroom. It hit both the importance of creativity and of finding the connections to ideas and educators. Susan coined the phrase "connecting teachers and ideas one glue stick at a time," and we set off to record. Episode One was with the a radical tech and design educator, Rabbi Michael Cohen (the Tech Rabbi) author of Educated by Design. That was over twenty episodes ago and now every Thursday a new episode drops. All of this has had us thinking, as we grow and we embrace not only our beloved art teachers but all creative educators we need a hashtag that says more than K12 Art Chat, so while we will be still be using it for the weekly chat, we are also branching out to include #CreativelyCreatedEdu and have a new instagram handle @creativelyconnectededu to boot. We love continuing to grow with our PLN and share the importance of the arts and creativity in all classrooms, so let's grow together by using the tag #CreativelyConnectedEdu!