I seems hard to believe that we are 3/4 through the summer months. Soon, the kids will be back in school and everyone will be getting into their fall routines and activities. It also means that the deadline for our Call for Papers is approaching quickly (For those who don’t know – the deadline is September 30th, 2010). In higher education, instructors are also working on their course content. This blog entry is directed at both prospective presenters and post-secondary instructors/faculty.
For those of you considering making a presentation proposal – we encourage to get your proposal in sooner than later! Our conference theme is: “Shout Out To The World“. We are looking for presentations on issues relating to professional practice, programs that emphasize growing areas of practice such as NICU music therapy or NMT (Neurological Music Therapy). We are also looking for presentations about the practice of music therapy in countries worldwide – this is, after all, an international conference and we hope to have representation from many different parts of the world.
Are you new to the field or hesitant about your presentation skills? We are also looking for individuals to participate in two music therapy roundtables. The first, we have titled, “Things that I wish they had taught me in school”. Educational programs have a set of core course that they must get through and there is not always time to teach you some of the “now what…” skills. We hope that this will be an informative and lively roundtable. Secondly, we are looking for participants for the “Specialized trainings” roundtable. Participants will give a short presentation about their specialized field of practice.
Educators – we have some great ideas that you may wish to consider for your training program! These can be incorporated into your existing training/courses with some advance planning and flexibility. For example, rather than have your students read about “the practice of music therapy”, why not have them create a video presentation about their own inquiries into music therapy. An example of this can be found on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pAF3qxQUjU . Such a product could engage the students in a collaborative form of learning, in a medium that they are familiar using – electronic media/social networking. Similarly, you might have them do a bibliographic activity where they locate resources on particular topics and then present the 10-20 best, complete with reviews. The rules for rating resources, guidelines for incorporation in the final product, etc. could be negotiated by the students, giving them an increased sense of ownership and awareness. Of course, these could be worked into a presentation during the online conference LoL
To conclude, we want to remind you that presentations are going to be recorded (video and audio) for posterity and released using a “Non-commercial, non-derivative” Creative Commons license. As well, during the conference we will be utilizing several communication “backchannels”. Presenters are required to remain active on the backchannel(s) for one half-hour after their presentation.
Once again, we welcome and invite your presentation proposals. Please follow the guidelines posted earlier in this blog (Official Call for Papers – July 1, 2010) including obtaining “confidentiality” agreements. Submit your completed proposal to our e-mail address: ocmt2011@gmail.com
The Conference Organizing Committee
Online Conference for Music Therapy 
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