Fall/ Winter 2021 Update

Throughout the summer of 2021, the Media Arts Committee of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards met on monthly calls to solicit feedback on our Media Arts Education Initiative document. It was decided that we should gather feedback on our document from a few stakeholders from national education agencies and stakeholders.  We worked during our summer meetings to develop questions to ask readers and develop a short list of readers to provide feedback. We developed a google form to answer questions and collect feedback.

1. Media arts is clearly defined in this document. (1 disagree to 5 agree)

2. This document makes a convincing argument for media arts as a separate and distinct discipline. (1 disagree to 5 agree)

3. This document provides robust support for the development and establishment of MAE. (1 disagree to 5 agree)

4. This document effectively recruits participation from interested parties. (1 disagree to 5 agree)

5. Do you have any advice on how to best disseminate this information? We would reformat it for various presentation contexts and situations.

6. What resources could you offer to assist in this effort?

7. What final questions or comments do you have regarding the effectiveness of this document and its stated intention?

After we received feedback, we made the necessary changes to the document.

One of the most frequent feedback responses asked for examples of media arts education to show an uninformed reader.

LITTLE BOXES from Bego M. Santiago on Vimeo.

Throughout the Fall and into Winter, Aaron Knochel from Penn State and I put together a document with three artist examples. I was proud to offer one of my former students, Luke Tiday, a role as a young professional media artist. We also chose a practicing artist (Bego Santiago,) and a teaching professional, Bryce Johnson. The group was sure to choose diverse candidates.

Luke Tiday

Next steps for our group include:
1. Finding a graphic design student at Penn State University willing ot turn our document into a visually appealing pamphlet
2. A big shift to beginning the Media Arts Education Association! (My name, actually, I prefer Media Arts Coalition of Educators!)

Dain Olsen provided an outline of our next steps:

This next phase requires that we have fully developed a platform and systems to handle wide distribution and presentation of recruitment materials and resulting responses across a broad range of individuals and organizations, and resulting lines of work, events and development, ultimately towards forming the national association. That is our organizing goal, and consolidates the process towards a defining, tangible objective. In effect, we are Staging the Full Launch of the NMAEI.



Therefore, we need a sizable team (20-30) that is committed to and capable of staging the Full Launch. This “Staging Team”, at least some of whom are media arts educators, needs the expertise and capacity to develop these initial organizational categories of work:

• Planning the phases of the NMAEI - Layout rough timelines of development, then refine them with progress
• Database, so that we competently capture the necessary information from all responses towards organizing, acting on and utilizing that information. E.g. If we get a good lead, we can determine that and act on it.
• Communications - respond to the diversity of responses and various queries for help and more information; designs and delivers presentations in a variety of formats -video, youtube, graphics, social media, individual and list-serve emails, webinars, zoom meetings, powerpoints; and audiences - individuals, businesses, organizations, districts, govt. Manage social media channels. All with coherent and uniform principles and language;
• Website - as detailed above, phased development, regularly updated
• Branding - a consistent look to our organization from Full Launch
• Expertise - to maintain consistency/coherence in language, concept and development, based primarily in NMAEI doc. provides expertise for new queries and potential development (e.g. a district wants to ___); MAC assists in this role
• Governance - a clear organizational structure and project management process for decision-making and progress - e.g. https://clickup.com/ MAC can advise.
• Convention/Association - plan for a virtual/physical Convention, by which the community could engage in processes towards a formal Association. This is a tangible organizing goal, which can drive the variety of formative communications, meetings and recruitments.
• Development categories - The committees and governing structures we will need at various stages - See the “Work Plan” spreadsheet: organizational, promotion, research, networking, resources, development, convention, website, etc
• Personnel - Volunteer at first. At what points are people compensated or asked to contribute? Once running with funding - can we clearly define, fund, fill and maintain a job description or two?
• Pathway to Non-Profit Association - initial structures, processes and steps, tasks, etc., culminating at the Convention
• Networking site - for building community connections, guided conversations and organizational intelligence e.g. Mobilize- https://www.mobilize.io -
• Funding - need to fairly quickly begin consistently acquiring funding - subscriptions, members, fiscal sponsorship?
• Other NMAEI goals - How and when to begin addressing other NMAEI goals - policy, advocacy, promotion, research, professional development

Therefore, MAC’s NMAEI document is sufficient to recruit and inform this Staging Team, very basically graphically designed. In the style of the overall doc, the example artists and students (4?) are extremely brief, simple and accessible, with links.