The Alabama Alliance for Arts Education and the Alabama State Council on the Arts have teamed up to explore ways to extend our traditional professional development models in ways that are economically and physically feasible. Having used web conferences for board meetings, it seemed a logical step to use the system to support our professional development programs. A traditional retreat was held November 2009 for arts specialists and teaching artists. The title of the program is "Making Value Visible" and the focus is to support art instructors in the documentation and assessment of learning in the arts. Two follow-up webinars were held in January and March. Participants were required to submit digital documentation of student work with assessment instruments to share with the rest of the group for discussion. A final two-day workshop is set for July. Besides the webinars, our community of artists has a Facebook page, which they are beginning to use to communicate between sessions.  

We are very conscious about the need to employ more technology in interactive ways, both with arts learning and professional development. We, as technology immigrants, are doing everything we can to keep up with our students that have been born into this technological world. The 21st century could easily leave our arts instructors and teaching artists behind if we do not support them in finding ways to interact with their students in a meaningful way. Although this particular process does not focus on the use of technology for students, it does require the teachers to begin employing technology for their work in an interactive way.  

In the session we will explain our goals and our process, and show excerpts from the webinars, In this way, we may share our successes and challenges which should start a conversation on the process. We would like to know if others are beginning to use webinars and what ideas people may have to expand the use interactive technologies.

Donna M. Russell is Executive Director of the Alabama Alliance for Arts Education in Montgomery. After working with local, county, and state PTAs as cultural arts chair, she developed a passion for the arts and arts education. She began working part time for the Alabama Alliance and became Executive Director in 2004. Nothing has been more rewarding than working to ensure the arts and arts education stay in our schools. Donna has had the privilege of working with the Alabama State Council on the Arts as a statewide service partner organization, the State Department of Education, statewide professional development organizations, statewide arts organizations, and the Kennedy Center. During her time as Executive Director, the Alabama Alliance has been instrumental in the formation of workshops for classroom teachers, teaching artists, and arts specialists. Partnerships have been formed with universities and the Arts Education Summit re-emerged as a statewide advocacy and training conference for all stakeholders in the arts in 2008, with the third Summit scheduled for 2010.

Donna is Chairman of the Support the Arts License Tag Committee, and serves on the Advisory Team for the Alabama Black Belt Arts Education Initiative, the Alabama Arts Education Consortium, and the committee to rewrite the Arts Plan for Alabama. She served on the task force for the revision and development of the KCAAEN 2009 – 2012 Strategic Plan. The Alabama Alliance is the Advocacy Captain for Americans for the Arts. In 2005, she received the President’s Award of Excellence for Outstanding Leadership and Service to Arts Education by the Alabama Art Education Association.