Wasting Away

Photographer Chris Jordon explores the debilitating role plastics play in the human and animal environment. The attached video explores an elementary school project based on his images. See the original pictures on Chris' website.

From Death to Virtual Life

Jeanne Kelly a Parsons School of Design graduate student is raising funds for innovative forensic art thesis project.  

Global Ed Summit

Doha, Qatar - December 8, 2010 - Chronicle of Higher of Education

In Qatar, Educators From Around the World Talk About Change  By Ursula Lindsey

photo by WISE

Over 1,200 people who work in education across the world arrived this week in this small, oil-wealthy Persian Gulf emirate. The visitors, who are scattered across Doha's five-star hotels and attended to by squadrons of PR people, are here for the second World Innovation Summit for Education, more commonly known as WISE, which bills itself as "building the future of education."

The summit is part of Qatar's continuing bid to become "a reference for education" says its chairman, Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, in an interview before the week's program began. "WISE was created to be a platform for people to network and to learn from each other."

For most of the participants, the conference is indeed a wonderful, all-expenses-paid networking opportunity. Participants are here courtesy of the Qatar Foundation, a government agency headed by the emir of Qatar's wife, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, which oversees a staggering array of educational, cultural and philanthropic activities.

"I was meeting people by the time I got off the plane," says Julian Johnson, senior vice president of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, an American mentoring program for students of color. The summit is still "embryonic," says Mr. Johnson, but "you have to give them props." The conference "does not just take inventory of the status quo, but looks at how do you propel change. And it broadens the conversation beyond the usual circles."

For more on the Global Education Summit in Qatar, see Chronicle.com

Divergent Thinking

Sir Ken Robinson Looks at 

CHANGING THE EDUCATION PARADIGM

a project of RSA Animate 2010

RSA - 21st Century Enlightenment thersa.org

Irvine Foundation Links Learning

From irvine.org 2010

Why Linked Learning?

Linked Learning addresses the fundamental challenges facing California’s system of high school education. Too often, traditional academic courses are not relevant to the lives and aspirations of many students. At the same time, vocational education often lacks the academic and technical rigor required for success in postsecondary education and high-skilled careers. Linked Learning offers a new way.

The Linked Learning approach to high school education combines strong academics and real-world experience to help students build a strong foundation for success in college and careers—and life. Students in Linked Learning programs follow a pathway, a comprehensive program of study that connects learning in the classroom with real-world applications outside of school. They integrate rigorous academic instruction with a demanding technical curriculum and field-based learning — all set in the context of one of California's 15 major industry sectors. The “Linked Learning” Name Linked Learning is the new name for the educational approach formerly known in California as "multiple pathways." After extensive public opinion research, the schools and organizations implementing this approach selected the Linked Learning name to more clearly convey its unique benefits to students, educators, parents and policymakers. Students pursue a pathway from grades nine to 12 and graduate prepared for the full range of post-graduation options — whether that means a two- or four-year college, an apprenticeship or formal job training. The Linked Learning approach challenges and inspires students to learn, and creates well-rounded, highly skilled individuals with the foundation for lifelong success. The Linked Learning approach is gaining in popularity because it can make schools more competitive and attractive to students. Research shows that it can generate higher academic achievement and can lead to increased college attendance rates, higher earning potential after graduation and greater civic engagement. To read more on Linked Learning initiative by the James Irvine Foundation, go to Irvine.org

Tech Talk

Obama's New Digital Learning Plan
Posted: November 11, 2010
Fred Belmont Math Teacher
Albert Einstein Distinguished Education Fellow


Education Secretary Arne Duncan unveiled the final version of the National Education Technology Plan on Tuesday -- proposals to use social networking, data collection and multi-media to get U.S. kids to learn more. According to Duncan, the plan -- almost two years in the making -- will help American education "transition to digital classrooms and transform learning" for the Facebook and IPhone generation and beyond.
As a middle school math teacher and a long-time union member, I had heard it all before. Dozens of "solutions du jour" have come and gone -- with little if any measurable improvement. I figured that this was one more attempt that was destined to fail.
As I read Duncan's speech about the plan, my skepticism evaporated. Not only could this plan prompt Democrats and Republicans in the incoming Congress to cross the aisle to focus on a crucial learning roadmap, but the plan -- and each of its five very specific goals -- makes sense!
For more on this story, see The Huffington Post.com

Stop Time to See

$30K W. Eugene Smith Grant Awarded to Darcy Padilla 

PDN October 21, 2010
by Conor Risch

American photographer Darcy Padilla received the 2010 W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography for “The Julie Project,” which examines AIDS, poverty and drug addiction in America. Padilla’s essay focuses on the life of Julie Baird, a subject she met in San Francisco in 1993 and photographed for 18 years.

Padilla was honored during a reception at the Asia Society in New York City.

Ann Curry, a news anchor and contributor to NBC’s Today and Dateline gave a keynote address in which she remarked on the unique ability of still images to “stop time so [viewer’s] minds can fully take in what they are seeing,” which she contrasted with the speed that makes the moving image difficult for viewers to digest. Curry encouraged the audience of photojournalists and photography professionals saying that, “human empathy is growing” in the world as a result of the legacy of documentary image making.

In her remarks Padilla recalled that when she told Baird of the honor, her subject and friend of 18 years asked sarcastically, “What took so long?” Baird died just days after Padilla learned of the grant; she was 36. Padilla said she was “thankful that [Baird] was open to me.”

For more on the story, see PDN Online.com

Museum InReach

The Participatory Museum by Nina Simon is a practical guide to visitor participation. It's been described as "essential reading" by Elaine Heumann Gurian and Sebastian Chan, and Kathleen McLean calls it "an extraordinary resource" Why did I write this book? Over the past four years, there's been lots of discussion about the "why" of visitor participation, but in my opinion, we've been lacking a good resource on the "how." The Participatory Museum is an attempt at providing such a resource. I hope it opens up a broader conversation about the nuts and bolts of successful participatory projects.

The book is split into two parts, providing what Leslie Bedford calls "a convincing marriage of theory and practice." The first half focuses on principles of design for participation, drawing on examples from the Web, retail, and restaurants as well as cultural institutions for lessons on how to help visitors confidently and enthusiastically contribute in ways that help achieve institutional goals. The second half focuses on participation in practice, looking in detail at ways that institutions can involve visitors while staying true to their mission and staff culture.

For more on the Participatory Museum, see Museums 2.0 on Blogspot
Also, here's a link to the 2010 Horizon Report on emerging museum education technologies.

Museum of Tomorrow?

Sketching a Future for The Brooklyn Museum
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Article by Robin Pogrebin

Photos by Todd Heisler

Published: August 5, 2010

THOUGH it resides in a prime example of traditional museum architecture — a Beaux-Arts building designed in 1893 by McKim, Mead & White — there is little stale or stodgy about the Brooklyn Museum. For more than a century the museum has been one of the country’s most important cultural institutions, and for more than a decade it has also courted controversy.

And that is by design, part of a considered effort to address the challenges that it, along with many other museums, face: how to appeal to a new generation in a climate of persistent financial pressure and the ambition to grow, to do more, to expand its audience. By some measures it has succeeded. By others, including attendance goals articulated by the museum itself, it has not.
With a stagnant economy magnifying these challenges, The New York Times asked experts with various perspectives, including artists, business executives and museum directors, to take a look at a number of questions that now confront the Brooklyn Museum and others. Is attendance a good measure of museum success? How do institutions build financial support at a time when both donors and the government feel pinched? Should a museum do more to engage its local artists, who, in Brooklyn’s case, are an especially vibrant group? And how should the unorthodox approach of the last decade be assessed?

In 1999 the museum created a maelstrom by exhibiting a painting that depicted the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant dung, prompting the mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to threaten to cut city financing. In 2002 it hosted an exhibition featuring props, models, costumes and characters from the “Star Wars” films that struck some reviewers as particularly lowbrow. And five years ago it added an unapologetically brash, modern glass entrance to the Old World exterior of its building.
More recently it gave away its celebrated costume collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and did away with traditional curatorial departments — like Egyptian art, African art and European painting — in favor of “teams” for exhibitions and collections. It included a Louis Vuitton shop in its Takashi Murakami exhibition, including handbags and other items designed by that artist. And it agreed to devote an exhibition this month to the work of whichever unknown artist beats back the challengers on Bravo’s reality show “Work of Art.”

For many, the museum’s often populist efforts have been just the kind of inventive risks necessary to stay accessible to the kind of visitors it has recently shown an ability to attract. The museum’s audience, which numbered 340,000 people a year at last count, is now significantly younger and more diverse than it had been, with an average age of 35 and members of minority groups making up 40 percent of its visitors. Others grumble, though, that the institution’s approach has undermined its stature, undersold its world-class collections and done little to increase attendance, which museum officials had once hoped would triple. Attendance, in fact, has been flat, even after the museum several years ago introduced First Saturdays — free nights that include music, dancing, food, a cash bar, gallery talks and films — which account for nearly a quarter of its visitors. 

For the complete story, featuring opinions by PHILIPPE DE MONTEBELLO, KAREN BROOKS HOPKINS, WILLIAM POWHIDA, ROCHELLE SLOVIN, DANIEL SIMMONS JR., ANN PHILBIN, MAXWELL L. ANDERSON, MICHAEL M. KAISER, MARTY MARKOWITZ, GRAHAM W. J. BEAL, BILL IVEY, DAVID A. ROSS, STEPHEN A. SCHWARZMAN, WENDA GU, LAURIE BECKELMAN, KIKI SMITH, PETER C. MARZIO, and RICO GATSON, see The New York Times.com

Depart and Displace

The Rise of Hip Hop and the Black Flight

KCET - Departures 2010

By the end of the 1960's - and the Watts Uprising - African-Americans had abandoned the search for a racial Promise Land and had come to terms with the near impossible task of overcoming the physical, philosophical and economical barriers created by centuries of racism. For many African-Americans the West had become the last refuge of a journey towards freedom. Faced with literally picking up the pieces of a broken neighborhood, African-Americans in South Los Angeles, Compton and beyond began to lose hope. This sentiment was reflected in the urban decay, poverty and continued violence occurring in their neighborhoods. Although issues of urban renewal were of great interest to the President Lyndon Johnson, the election of Richard Nixon in 1968 dismantled virtually every effort to fight the "War on Poverty." Young African-Americans felt defeated and began to informally construct their own economic and social rules, replacing the missing institutional security that was once promised by the city governments. 

Check out the entire Series at KCET Departures.

Departures is KCET's hyper-local web documentary, community engagement tool and digital literacy program about the cultural history of Los Angeles' neighborhoods.

Revolution UnMediated

SMALL CHANGE

Why the revolution will not be tweeted.

by Malcolm Gladwell

The New Yorker

OCTOBER 4, 2010

ILLUSTRATION: SEYMOUR CHWAST

At four-thirty in the afternoon on Monday, February 1, 1960, four college students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. They were freshmen at North Carolina A. & T., a black college a mile or so away. “I’d like a cup of coffee, please,” one of the four, Ezell Blair, said to the waitress. “We don’t serve Negroes here,” she replied. The Woolworth’s lunch counter was a long L-shaped bar that could seat sixty-six people, with a standup snack bar at one end. The seats were for whites. 

The snack bar was for blacks. Another employee, a black woman who worked at the steam table, approached the students and tried to warn them away. “You’re acting stupid, ignorant!” she said. They didn’t move. Around five-thirty, the front doors to the store were locked. The four still didn’t move. Finally, they left by a side door. Outside, a small crowd had gathered, including a photographer from the Greensboro Record. “I’ll be back tomorrow with A. & T. College,” one of the students said. By next morning, the protest had grown to twenty-seven men and four women, most from the same dormitory as the original four. The men were dressed in suits and ties. 

author, Malcolm Gladwell

The students had brought their schoolwork, and studied as they sat at the counter. On Wednesday, students from Greensboro’s “Negro” secondary school, Dudley High, joined in, and the number of protesters swelled to eighty. By Thursday, the protesters numbered three hundred, including three white women, from the Greensboro campus of the University of North Carolina. By Saturday, the sit-in had reached six hundred. People spilled out onto the street. White teen-agers waved Confederate flags. Someone threw a firecracker. At noon, the A. & T. football team arrived. “Here comes the wrecking crew,” one of the white students shouted.

By the following Monday, sit-ins had spread to Winston-Salem, twenty-five miles away, and Durham, fifty miles away. The day after that, students at Fayetteville State Teachers College and at Johnson C. Smith College, in Charlotte, joined in, followed on Wednesday by students at St. Augustine’s College and Shaw University, in Raleigh. On Thursday and Friday, the protest crossed state lines, surfacing in Hampton and Portsmouth, Virginia, in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and in Chattanooga, Tennessee. By the end of the month, there were sit-ins throughout the South, as far west as Texas. 

“I asked every student I met what the first day of the sitdowns had been like on his campus,” the political theorist Michael Walzer wrote in Dissent. “The answer was always the same: ‘It was like a fever. Everyone wanted to go.’ ” Some seventy thousand students eventually took part. Thousands were arrested and untold thousands more radicalized. These events in the early sixties became a civil-rights war that engulfed the South for the rest of the decade—and it happened without e-mail, texting, Facebook, or Twitter.

Read the complete story on New Yorker.com

Art of the Environment

Barry Benepe: Mr. Greenmarket
Jane Jacobs Medalist

Barry Benepe is proud to be a born-and-bred New Yorker. The son of a linen importer, he grew up on Gramercy Park, walking daily under the Third Avenue El to attend Friends Seminary on Stuyvesant Square.

In 1966, Barry organized demonstrations to have Central Park Drive closed to traffic on weekends. Galvanized by the success of their campaign, Barry and his cohorts founded Transportation Alternatives, a group that promotes city cycling and advocates greater use of public transportation and car-free parks. Many in the group see themselves carrying out the legacy of Jane Jacobs, who wrote scathingly about Americans’ dependence on cars, and stated, “Are we building cities for people or for cars?”

It is the Greenmarket program, however, that has been Barry’s greatest passion for the past thirty years. Following his work for developers who were buying up farmland in Orange County, NY, in the early 1970s, he was inspired to combine his experience in working on his family’s truck farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland as a child with his expertise in planning. His goal was to marry the economic needs of struggling farmers upstate with the desire of city residents for fresh and affordable produce. Barry enlisted the help of a fellow planner, Bob Lewis, and the two obtained the sponsorship of the Council on the Environment of NYC to start Greenmarket.

Here's a recent video interview with Barry Benepe and the full article on Future of New York.org