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What are the implications of 21st Century Learning Skills for arts learning?

21st Century Learning Skills

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A Michigan Online Conversation about Arts Education in These Changing Times

If you've been following national arts education conversations, you'll notice that there is a good deal of talk about "community arts" as leaders try to align their rhetoric with President-elect Obama's new directions.

With NCLB up for reauthorization, arts educators need to pay close attention to two conversations- those going on in the arts, and those in education.

Michigan arts educators also need to pay attention to what happens with the auto industry - the lifeblood of our region.

If arts education in schools is not strengthened through the NCLB re-authorization process, will the arts education of students be outsourced from our schools?

If it is true that the skills the arts teach are vital to our global economy (e.g. design, visualization, information graphics, imaginative learning, multimodal communications...) how can we by-pass the education system and turn something this critical over solely to community partners?

If you'd like to participate in our own Michigan conversation around arts education in these changing times, carefully read the ArtsJournal Debate on Arts Education and post your own thoughts to this blog by commenting to this post.

The Arts Journal Debate on Arts Education

This Conversation

By Douglas McLennan

For decades, as teaching of the arts has been cut back in our public schools, alarms have been raised about the dire consequences for American culture. Artists and arts organizations stepped in to try to... take up some of the slack. Foundations funded programs to take art into the schools. But producers of art aren't primarily in the education business. Schools increasingly focused on meeting basic skills benchmarks have less and less time to make room for study of the arts. And technology has spawned a vast, crowded, and alluring marketplace of creativity competing for attention. New research Cultivating Demand for the Arts: Arts Learning, Arts Engagement, and State Arts Policy by RAND and sponsored by The Wallace Foundation suggests that a generation of Americans has not developed the knowledge or skills to engage with our cultural heritage. Without that engagement, the arts as we know them are unsustainable over the long run. Can anything be done?

This Arts Journal blog brought in some key thinkers in the arts to debate about arts education.

http://www.artsjournal.com/artsed/2008/11/this-blog.html

Media Arts Education in Germany

A blog on interdisciplinary approaches in media, arts & education at school & university level by Daniela Reimann in Germany.

http://daniela-reimann.de/wordpress/?p=1

Arts Transition Recommendations from National Arts Organizations

Arts Policy in the New Administration
November 21, 2008

Recommendations to the Office of Presidential Transition
on behalf of
American Association of Museums
Americans for the Arts
Association of Art Museum Directors
Association of Performing Arts Presenters
Chamber Music America
Chorus America
Dance/USA
League of American Orchestras
Literary Network
National Alliance for Musical Theatre
National Assembly of State Arts Agencies
National Council for Traditional Arts
National Performance Network
National Network for Folk Arts in Education
OPERA America
Theatre Communications Group

The arts and cultural community welcomes the opportunity to communicate with President-Elect Obama and his staff in re-imagining how the federal government can inspire and support creativity in communities nationwide through robust policies that advance participation in the arts for all Americans.

The following policy recommendations have been developed by the national associations listed above, whose memberships comprise thousands of American cultural institutions and artists as well as state and local government arts agencies. We speak as a collective voice for our members, who make enormous artistic, educational, and economic contributions to the well-being of the nation and its communities.

President-Elect Obama’s platform in support of the arts acknowledges the importance of American creativity and addresses a range of key federal policy areas that can be strengthened in the new Administration. We whole-heartedly affirm his goals of boosting support for arts education, improving cultural exchange and the U.S. visa process for foreign guest artists, mobilizing an ArtistCorps, increasing funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), providing health care for artists, and advancing fair tax policies for the arts. As you are aware, Federal policies affect the arts across a broad swath of issue areas involving many agencies, including the NEA, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Institute of Museum and Library Services, as well as the Departments of State, Interior, Treasury, Education, Transportation, Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Corporation for National and Community Service.

For many years, however, federal policy towards the arts has been fragmented and uncoordinated, lacking coherence and occasionally at cross-purposes with itself. To complement President-Elect Obama’s current arts platform, the following recommendations in several key areas address, in varying degrees of detail, ways in which federal leadership can amplify the capacity of the arts to help our nation meet its goals of increased prosperity, international diplomacy, and community vitality. We ask above all that the new Administration approach arts policy holistically. To that end, one of our recommendations is that it appoint a senior-level official in the White House itself. We also urge a more coherent presence for the arts within the various agencies and the opportunity for the arts to be included in forthcoming economic stimulus programs.

We hope that the Office of Presidential Transition will find these recommendations useful as it assembles the new team, and we would be glad to discuss any of them in further detail.

National Endowment for the Arts
Cultural Exchange
Arts Education in School, Work, and Life
National Service and the Arts
Appoint Senior-Level Administration Official to Coordinate Arts and Cultural Policy
The Role of the Arts in the Not-for-Profit Community

National Endowment for the Arts

Background
It is the mission of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to foster the excellence, diversity, and vitality of the arts in the United States and to broaden public access to the arts. The NEA must provide support for building the capacity of American arts organizations and artists to create and share their work, by initiating national programs, partnering effectively with state and local arts agencies, and helping to ensure lifelong learning in the arts for every American. We urge the Administration to empower the National Endowment for the Arts with the authority and resources to broaden and deepen participation in the arts throughout the United States.

Policy Recommendations
Support a National Endowment for the Arts with the resources to provide national leadership.
• Create a capacity-building initiative to support artistic excellence, improve organizational financial structures, develop a national cultural arts infrastructure, and broaden participation by all Americans.
• Support arts education by engaging educators, artists, and arts organizations in extending the experience in arts education through lifelong learning, and collaborating with the U.S. Department of Education to advance the federal role in K-12 arts education.
• Make flexible grants that increase the capacity of American arts organizations and artists to create and present meaningful arts experiences for Americans, recognizing the value of establishing fellowships to individual artists, providing grants for multi-year support, and permitting arts service organizations the opportunity to regrant funds.
• Increase the NEA budget to $319.2 million, the FY 1992 peak budget level of $176 million adjusted for inflation and population as a step toward providing a more appropriate level of artistic benefits to the American people.
Support a National Endowment for the Arts with the capacity to provide national leadership.
• Expand the research capacity of the NEA and the federal commitment to initiating research issues in the arts and cultural policy.
• Involve close consultation with artists, arts organizations, and the communities they serve in developing and advancing new programs and initiatives at the NEA as well as enhancing existing programs.
• Enhance support and technical assistance to the field through such means as instituting site visits and technical assistance grant support, and serving as a convener for policy panels.
• Nurture collaboration around goals shared by not-for-profit arts organizations and the commercial arts sector.
• Strengthen the National Council on the Arts through appointments broadly representative of artistic disciplines and concerns, geographically diverse, and characterizing the multiple and collective cultural interests of all Americans, and create a stronger forum for expanding the presence of and access to the arts in this country.

Cultural Exchange
Background
International cultural exchange in the performing, visual, literary, and folk arts is a valuable tool for addressing U.S. diplomatic goals, strengthening our country’s international relations, and enriching the skills of our artists. The shared experience, which transcends any language gap, can bring together people of different backgrounds, allowing cultural exchange to serve as a tool for diplomatic efforts. By reinforcing the commonalities among cultures and illuminating our unique differences, cultural exchanges foster understanding and, at a time when the U.S. image abroad is in dire need of improvement, investing in cultural exchange is essential.
Artists make powerful and effective ambassadors, and their skills have the profound ability to inspire both at home and abroad. Just as it is important to send American artists abroad, there is tremendous value in helping foreign artists share their talents with American audiences. Cultural exchange results in a more vibrant U.S. cultural scene and as artists experience and share their creative products, a broadening of their creative skills takes place. Additionally, cultural exchange serves to expand the development of international trade relations.

Policy Recommendations
• Strengthen support for cultural policy among senior leadership at the Department of State and increase federal funding for cultural exchange programs. Leadership should provide greater staffing and funding resources to facilitate cultural exchange opportunities and raise the public visibility of federal support. Likewise, create a dedicated position within the Domestic Policy Council to focus on international cultural policy, which would allow cultural exchange to have a broader focus beyond the availability of program funding. By the joint effort of these leadership positions, cultural exchange could enter and enhance national and international policy discussions.
• Encourage increased public/private partnerships to maximize resources used for the promotion of cultural exchange. Opening avenues to funding from multiple sources creates new opportunities to participate in cultural exchange and subsidized touring. Furthermore, public/private partnerships may enable participation in multi-year, sustainable exchange programs.
• Expand Americans’ access to the cultures of the world through an increase in support for translations (fiction, poetry, drama, and books about the performing and visual arts).
• Improve the U.S. visa and tax procedures for foreign guest artists, which are burdensome and prohibitive. Welcoming foreign artists to perform in the United States provides Americans the opportunity to experience a diversity of artistic talent and encourages a supportive climate for U.S. artists abroad.

Arts Education in School, Work, and Life
Background
In order to respond to the changing climate of global competitiveness, demographic shifts, and economic disparity, major changes to the delivery of education to our nation’s children are inevitable. As our nation contemplates these changes, and prepares students to be global citizens, the federal commitment to arts education must be strengthened so that the arts are implemented as a part of the core curriculum of our schools and are integral to every child’s development. The recommendations below are consistent with President-Elect Obama’s public statements and proposals in support of a comprehensive arts education for every student.
When needed most, the arts are being cut from our schools.
• The arts are uniquely able to boost learning and achievement for young children, students from economically disadvantaged circumstances, and students needing remedial instruction.
• A 2007 study from the Center on Education Policy has found that, since the enactment of NCLB, 30% of districts with at least one school identified as needing improvement have decreased instruction time for arts and music. These are the districts whose students are most responsive to the benefits of the arts, as demonstrated through numerous research studies.
The public, business leaders, and economic experts agree that the arts are essential to a complete education and preparing a 21st century workforce.
• According to the Conference Board, there is overwhelming consensus from superintendents (98%) and corporate leaders (96%) that “creativity is of increasing importance to the U.S. workforce.” Of those corporate respondents looking for creative people, 85% said they were having difficulty finding qualified applicants with the creative characteristics they desired.
• The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, in its report Tough Choices or Tough Times (2006) states, “It is a world in which comfort with ideas and abstractions is the passport to a good job, in which creativity and innovation are the key to the good life…”
• A Lake Research poll of 1,000 likely voters revealed that, “83% of voters believe that a greater focus on the arts – alongside science, technology, and math – would better prepare students to address the demands of the 21st century.”

Policy Recommendations
Prevent economic status and geographic location from denying students a comprehensive arts education.
• Ensure equitable access to the full benefits of arts education when reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act so that all, not just some, students can learn to their full potential.
• Exercise leadership to encourage arts-based and other creative learning environments for academically at-risk students participating in Title I-funded programs.
• Retain the arts in the definition of core academic subjects of learning and reauthorize the Arts in Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education.
• Fund after-school arts learning opportunities and support arts education partnerships between schools and community arts and cultural organizations.
* Move federal policy beyond simply declaring the arts as a core academic subject to actually implementing arts education as an essential subject of learning.• Require states to issue annual public reports on the local status and condition of arts education and other core academic subjects.
• Improve national data collection and research in arts education.
• Invest in professional development opportunities for teachers in the arts.
Deploy arts education as an economic development strategy.
• Authorize and encourage inclusion of arts learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) initiatives in order to foster imagination and innovation. Without the arts, STEM falls short of its potential to advance education and workforce development.
• Fully preparing students with the creative skills they will need to advance our nation’s position in the 21st century global economy requires implementing the arts as a core subject of learning and ensuring that all students attain cultural literacy.
• Ensure that the full range of federal initiatives that advance workforce development, such as Department of Labor programs, provide training in the skills of creativity and imagination.

National Service and the Arts
Background
The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNS) works to fill various unmet needs, from education and housing to healthcare and community development. The arts bring individuals of all ages together, increase communication across cultural and ethnic boundaries, strengthen public education, and bring joy and entertainment to millions of Americans. Together, National Service and the arts create a powerful force, demonstrating the ability for Americans to take initiative, tap into their creative forces, and work together to address a broad array of unmet needs in our country.

The arts have a successful record of partnering with the Corporation for National and Community Service. AmeriCorps members have helped to build and administer summer arts camps in rural communities, designed and painted murals in low-income city districts, and strengthened programming at local arts councils. Learn and Serve America has partnered with arts organizations to strengthen arts education and community service education in the public schools in Florida and RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program) members, under the SeniorCorps Program, have toured Delaware teaching art and music to children in after-school activities.

Additionally, a study issued by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2006, “The Arts and Civic Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in Life,” found that individuals who participate in the arts are more likely to volunteer in their communities and engage in positive civic activities.
A stronger, more clearly defined relationship between the arts and national service will enable our country to more effectively meet community needs in education, community understanding, and economic development while allowing millions of people to enjoy and participate in the arts.

Policy Recommendations
The Corporation for National and Community Service oversees three large programs: AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, and SeniorCorps. Arts organizations and art-related projects have a proven record of filling unmet community needs through AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, and SeniorCorps.

• To strengthen the relationship between the three CNS core programs, arts organizations, and individual artists, it is recommended that CNS give specific reference to community arts projects and not-for-profit cultural organizations in the list of eligible national service programs as detailed in the National and Community Service Trust Act.
• Further, CNS should create, within the Special Initiatives Program, a recognition program for a successful community arts project with a noticeable impact on unmet needs.
Expand and strengthen national service initiatives at senior administration levels, above and beyond the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• Establish a “Volunteer Generation Fund” to help not-for-profit organizations recruit and manage more CNS volunteers.
• Establish a Commission to study and improve how the federal government, not-for-profits, and the private sector can work together to meet national challenges effectively.
• Establish a network of “Community Solution Funds,” venture capital funds for the not-for-profit sector to support innovation in the sector.
*CNS should seek to develop a fourth program branch to be known as the ArtistCorps, to connect artists, not-for-profit arts organizations, volunteers, and CNS resources with communities across the country to fulfill unmet needs in education, community development, economic activity, and culturally diverse communities. To assist with this recommendation, it is suggested that CNS:
• Include the word, “cultural,” as a primary need in the National and Community Service Act.
• Partner with private initiatives in the visual, performing, literary, and folk and traditional arts, such as the Music National Service Initiative (www.musicnationalservice.org), which brings the skills of professional musicians to supplement music education in the public schools and provide lifelong learning opportunities for all ages.

Appoint Senior-Level Administration Official to Coordinate
Arts and Cultural Policy
Background
Policy issues relating to the arts and culture have reached a level of diversity and complexity where the National Endowment for the Arts’ grant-making and leadership role alone cannot sufficiently address our nation’s cultural policies. The enormous potential to integrate the creative economy, technology issues, changing demographics, and workforce development into policy through the federal government will require leadership directly from the White House.
There are various federal agencies that maintain programs relating to the arts: service at Corporation for National Service, international exchange at the State Department, and arts education at the U.S. Department of Education to name a few. Beyond these examples, there is greater opportunity to bundle together a portfolio that would provide leadership in economic development opportunities at the U.S. Department of Commerce, intellectual property issues, and other arts-related areas.

Current policy advisory groups similar to our recommendations exist, providing helpful guidance in how to construct the best fit:
• The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities is an advisory committee traditionally led by the First Lady that makes recommendations for awards and participates in diplomatic activities relating to international cultural events; however, this committee is outside the direct policy work developed by the President’s staff.
• The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in the Executive Office of the President provides a good example of policy work within the White House, led by a director with an Assistant to the President rank.

Policy Recommendations
• The President should name a senior-level administration official in the Executive Office to coordinate arts and cultural policy, guiding initiatives from federal agencies responsible for tourism, education, economic development, cultural exchange, intellectual property policy, broadband access, and other arts-related areas.
• This new Administration official or office would help to supply critical information for those exercising the “bully pulpit” of the White House, such as the President, the First Lady, and other top leadership figures. The bully pulpit could be used to encourage philanthropy and promote support of the arts and artists. It could further the search for model approaches that allow the arts to contribute to the economy and ensure that the American people’s access to artistic work is not limited by systemic choke points. Finally, it could urge all Americans to learn and engage personally in the arts.

The Role of the Arts in the Not-for-Profit Community
Background
Unique in the world in its size and scope, America’s not-for-profit sector provides a multitude of services that in most other nations are delivered by government agencies. From health care to social services to arts and culture, American not-for-profit organizations enrich lives in communities large and small nationwide. Acknowledged to be more efficient and flexible than the government and more service-focused than the corporate sector, not-for-profit organizations rely on contributions and volunteers, with individual citizens choosing where and when to donate their funds and services.

A large percentage of the cultural institutions in this country are not-for-profit, charitable organizations with a mission of service. This service comes in many forms, nourishing the imagination, providing emotional solace in times of need; educating children, teachers, and lifelong learners; and strengthening communities. As one leader has said, our institutions “reflect creativity, history, culture, ideas, innovation, exploration, discovery, diversity, freedom of expression, and the ideals of democracy.” They also include millions of people in a host of capacities, including artists, scholars, administrators, technicians, carpenters, accountants, and many more.

Not-for-profit arts organizations protect and add to America’s cultural heritage, making it accessible to all through exhibitions, performances, and online programming. These organizations give Americans access to the best of the past and present, providing inspiration, education, and entertainment. In presenting cultural heritage, they are governed by a commitment to their mission: excellence, integrity, and transparency. Historically, these institutions have relied on the generosity of donors and volunteers, with a very small percentage of funding coming from governmental or corporate sponsors. Ticket sales and admission fees alone do not come close to subsidizing the artistic presentations, educational offerings, and community-based programming of not-for-profit arts organizations. A significant percentage of direct financial support for non-for-profit arts organizations is derived from charitable giving, and without this support, the ability of these organizations to serve the public would be significantly diminished. Diverse types of charitable giving provide support for arts organizations of all sizes: individual contributions; planned giving; family, business, and corporate foundation grants; in-kind contributions; and gifts of property. There are no profits or shareholders, therefore income is put back into service to the community.

Policy Recommendations
Ensure that the fundamental characteristics of federal support for the not-for-profit community, which have built an unrivalled cultural sector that is the envy of the world, not only remain in place but are strengthened for the future.
• Any mission-related income is exempt from federal tax, as is any endowment income.
• Real property is exempt from property tax.
• Charitable contributions should be fully tax-deductible.
• Governance is by a board of volunteers.
• Contributions of their own work by artists and writers should be tax deductible, as provided by the Artist-Museum Partnership Act (cosponsored by Senator Obama on February 25, 2008). The new Administration could include this as a provision in their budget proposal next year.

Amar Bhidé on Creativity and Innovation in the Economy and Education

Columbia University professor and author of “The Venturesome Economy” (Princeton University Press), on the role of "all the various forms of knowledge generated by the massively multiplayer innovations game that sustains economic growth” and what impact this awareness should have on education.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30ping.html?_r=1&ref=business

What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/business/16digi.html?em#

There is a widening gap between males and females in the computer science field. After advances 25 years ago, girls are no longer enrolling in computer science at previous rates. The authors point to the rise in action gaming along with the 'nerdy' perception of the field as two factors driving girls away from computer science.

Music and Film Combine for the Story of West Michigan Manufacturing

November 13, 2008

American music, new film of West Michigan manufacturing combine for unusual evening at the symphony

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

To say that the West Shore Symphony Orchestra plans to put an unusual twist on the story of West Michigan manufacturing is an understatement.

Next March, the WSSO will combine contemporary film, photography, music by American composers and a live orchestra in an innovative multimedia performance celebrating the region’s manufacturing prowess.

“We’re adapting the program American Made: The Art of Manufacturing, a program that highlights manufacturing in America and in Springfield, Ohio,” says Carla Hill, WSSO spokesperson. “It started with the Springfield Symphony and was very successful. I heard about this and thought this is something West Michigan needs to celebrate its manufacturing heritage.”

Seattle-based The Now Device, creators of the Springfield project, sent a film crew to West Michigan last week to film the 10 manufacturers and three schools sponsoring the $100,000 program. Those filmed include L-3 Combat Propulsion Systems, Muskegon; Alcoa Howmet, Whitehall; Padnos Iron & Metal Co., Grand Rapids; Johnston Boiler, Ferrysburg; Muskegon Community College and Muskegon Career Tech Center.

The upcoming performances feature the WSSO performing works by Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, John Williams, Mark O’Connor and other American composers live, a unique background to the film, photography, and live footage of the orchestra which will be projected on three overhead screens. Live narrative will highlight the history of manufacturing in the region, and underscore what the audience is seeing and hearing.

“I look at this as a catalyst to look at and speak about manufacturing, its history and its future,” Hill says. “There is a lot of manufacturing going on and it’s changing. This is a great way for manufacturing communities to celebrate their work, where manufacturing has been, and where it’s going.”

Performances are 8 p.m., March 27 and 28 at the Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts.

Source: Carla Hill, West Shore Symphony Orchestra; Mary Ann Sabo, Sabo Public Relations

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.

As published on http://www.rapidgrowthmedia.com

Mash-ups and DJ Earworm... new trend in music and technology

According to Jordan "DJ Earworm" Roseman, author of a primer on the topic:

"At its most basic, a mashup is simply the vocals of one song singing or
rapping over the instrumental of another song, assembled on a computer. Each component is edited to make sure the parts flow together seamlessly."

DJ EARWORM MASHUP MUSIC PRODUCER

You might think that a 5-minute mix of fragments from last year’s 25 most popular songs would result in an overwhelming barrage of unrelated experiences, a disposable novelty. Instead, DJ Earworm’s song “United State of Pop” went viral and turned into a national radio hit, being the first underground mashup to break into Mediabase’s Top 100 charts in the Urban and Pop radio formats.

Mashups have emerged as one of the most exciting and talked-about new musical trends of this century, with DJ Earworm re-imagining and re-defining the genre. The first wave of mashups simply featured the vocals of one song combined with the instrumental of another. Through his artistic and technological innovations, Earworm ushers in a second wave, further breaking our musical landscape into myriad fragments and re-weaving them into new compositions of unexpected coherence and beauty.

Equipped with degrees in computer science and music, Earworm blends the arts of songwriting, music production and arrangement, remixing, database programming, and quantitative analysis. He writes custom software for live DJing and mashup production, and wrote the book on mashups (literally! –“Audio Mashup Construction Kit”, published by Wiley), sharing his secrets with a growing culture of DIY remixers. He’s created music for a diverse list of clients including MTV, Universal Records, Cartier, Google and the SF Museum of Modern Art. His DJ performances are in demand, giving events a range of moods all the way from quiet sophistication to rowdy revelry. Listen to his creations at djearworm.com.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Positive psychologist

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has contributed pioneering work to our understanding of happiness, creativity, human fulfillment and the notion of "flow" -- a state of heightened focus and immersion in activities such as art, play and work.

This TED Talk focuses on Creativity, fulfillment, and flow.

Why you should listen to him:

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. A leading researcher in positive psychology, he has devoted his life to studying what makes people truly happy: "When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life." He is the architect of the notion of "flow" -- the creative moment when a person is completely involved in an activity for its own sake.

Csikszentmihalyi teaches psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University, focusing on human strengths such as optimism, motivation and responsibility. He's the director the the Quality of Life Research Center there. He has written numerous books and papers about the search for joy and fulfillment.

"A man obsessed by happiness."

Richard Flaste, New York Times

Creative Cities Summit 2.0 MLK Marching Band

DSCN0460
Originally uploaded by Ana Luisa Cardona

Detroit's Martin Luther King HS Marching Band opened the Creative Cities Summit 2.0 with great energy.

To view photos and visual notes from this international gathering that took place in Detroit, MI Oct. 11-15, 2008, go to:

http://flickr.com/photos/31598310@N06/sets/72157608219087495/

Artist Ray Ceaser trades in paints and brushes for Maya 3D Software

"For me the computer is a perfect tool to work intuitively," says Caesar who originally got his start in film animation and builds each piece as a complete 3D environment. "Nothing is concrete and set in stone and I can change things as I need to, even if I have almost completed the image. A brush or pencil is the extension of a hand and eye, a motion of the arm and a judgment of space and negative space; the computer does this as well as any tool and in some ways I can get inside my tool."

The knock on most digital art is that it's often built from pre-existing imagery, but Maya forces Caesar to use many of the same skills needed for most traditional artwork. "The work he does, and how he builds it, you can't create that without being able to paint or draw it in the first place," says Levine. "It's an incredibly technical and time-consuming process. He's pioneered a new way of making art. His work is informed by traditional methods and styles but executed with new tools."

For the complete article, go to: 

http://creativity-online.com/?action=news:article&newsId=131059

Technology makes art education a bigger draw

In art, as in life at large, technology has changed everything – or, more precisely, almost everything.

In art classes at schools and universities today, new and emerging software is rendering art appreciation and even actual artistic production accessible to a far greater number of interested students and aspiring artists than ever before.

In the classic approach, talented apprentices toil under the tutelage of a highly skilled master to perfect their skills and learn the fundamentals of their art. That approach works well for the talented few but not so well for those who lack dogged desire or raw native talent. It also imposes strict limits on the number of individuals permitted to benefit from the wisdom, skill, and experience of the master.

To a remarkable degree, technology in the service of art and art education is changing all that.

To read the complete article that appeared in ESchool News, click here.

Studio 360: Jeff Lieberman, Musician, Photographer, Robotics Engineer

Jeff Lieberman is a musician, a photographer, and is getting his PhD in Robotics. He's also the host of "Time Warp" on the Discovery Channel. But years ago, when Lieberman was a teenager, he was unsure whether to choose a creative or scientific path. Then he encountered an amazing sculpture by the artist Arthur Ganson.

This Studio 360 segment was produced by Lindsay Patterson.

A New Look and New Feature

At the request of some of the readers of this blog, I've adopted a new template which is easier on the eyes.

I'll also try keeping my posts to short descriptions with links for those who want to read further.

I'm still looking for some brave souls who not only read but are willing to interact with this blog.

Who might those be?

The Olympian by David Remnick, The New Yorker, Aug. 4, 2008

PROFILE of Chinese pianist Lang Lang. Few citizens of China benefitted more from this summer’s Beijing Olympics than classical pianist Lang Lang. Lang Lang was a ubiquitous Olympic presence. Bookstores featured his new autobiography, “Journey of a Thousand Miles,” along with his best-selling album, “Dragon Songs.” Theatres will later screen “Lang Lang’s Song for 2008,” an adoring documentary. In the realm of high culture, he is China’s first crossover star.

To read the complete article, click:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/04/080804fa_fact_remnick

NPR Story: Backyard Art Thrives in Michigan

July 30, 2008 · From anywhere in Michigan, you're only a day trip away from a Styrofoam, 13-foot scale model of Stonehenge. There's also a menagerie of farm and circus animals constructed from car parts. We visit some of these artists and innovators.

To listen to this NPR story, click here: Backyard Art

For more on backyard art and other Michigan unique expressions of creativity, read Weird Michigan by Linda S. Godfrey.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Pausch was many things, he built bridges between the sciences and the arts, confronted walls that he or others put in front of him, had the unrelenting curiousity of a child and insisted on having fun through it all.

He reached star status when his “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon became a YouTube sensation.

The lecture was followed by a book of the same name, written with Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow, who worked on the book from his home in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

He passed away July 25th, 2008 at too early an age from pancreatic cancer.

One of his last projects was Alice, a free and innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.

Become a kid again and try it out alone or with a young one you know:

http://www.alice.org/

And, take some time to listen to “The Last Lecture” on YouTube.

ABC is doing a 1-hour feature on his life, July 29th at 10 pm EST.

To all who confront walls, build bridges, and have
fun each step of the way!

Where are folks coming from?

Two resources related to understanding why we keep preaching to the choir and why our communities do not grow.

Check out:

- The Metropolitan Group on Building Will

- One on Ones

Music, patterns, algorithms and visualization

Listening History
Lee Byron
http://megamu.com/work/listeninghistory/leebyron

Algorithmically generated posters based on statistical information provided by Last.fm software. Every song listened to by a particular user over an eighteen month period of time is recorded and used to create the visualization. Each colored band represents a musical artist, progressing left to right through the eighteen month span growing wider when listening was more frequent, and skinnier when it was not. The hue of the artist represents the time of the first listen for the particular user: cooler colors represent artists who have been listened to for a long period of time while warmer colors represent artists who are more recent in the user's listening habits.The resulting poster is printed at 11" tall by up to 75", each month is represented by 3.75". While these are visually interesting, they tend to have a much stronger effect on a personal level since the user draws connections between unique patterns in the poster and correlating events in their life.

Design Communication for the 22nd Century

Paola Antonelli, senior curator at the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Architecture and Design talks about her approach to putting together her latest show, Design and the Elastic Mind as well as her opinions on the state of design and its role as communication.

By: Nick Parish Published: Apr 1, 2008 in Creativity Online


Paola Antonelli

What do you hope viewers take from the exhibition? I just want them to have this soaring feeling of possibilities. Every single show I do is to explain to as wide an audience as possible how sublime design is. I really consider design one of the very highest forms of human creativity. I consider it very complex and very tough because it's not only about having a great idea it's about going through all the steps and reality checks that design entails and still having the great idea at the end. I just want to communicate that. Also, every show that I curate always has different levels. I am at the MoMA, I'm very lucky to be here, because I have a big audience, but they're not necessarily here to see design. Hardly ever. They come here to see Matisse and Picasso, God bless them, and then they stumble upon my show and I keep them there. To this audience I need to be able to speak. To an audience like this you speak through beauty, through the sense of surprise and delight. So you enter the show and you immediately feel that it's a special space. You see the objects and see that the objects are gorgeous. Then you start reading and you can go deep into things. Then, of course, I talk to the audience, my community, the design community. I want them to feel proud of themselves. I want them to be inspired by what they didn't know yet so I try to make an effort to show things that they might not have seen in other shows. It's a special moment for design, for the history of the world, from a technological and ethical moment. I want them to feel that, feel their important role and that somebody's talking about this important role and feel their responsibility to their potential. And then, I'm talking to my other audience in another community, which is the audience of people that are slightly more advanced in art and culture. I want them to understand the important position of design.

Oded Ezer's 'Typosperma'
How did you go about starting to collect this vast group of items? What conditions or tenets did you keep in mind? When I started out, there were hardly any conditions. Whenever I start an exhibition of this scope, one of the first steps is to bug everyone I know. I sent out this message, saying I'm doing this show. In the beginning it was not called "Design and the Elastic Mind," it was called "The State of Design," very wide. I said Have you seen anything? Is there anything I should look into? Any school I should visit? And with Patricia [Juncosa Vecchierini, curatorial assistant] we collected, we look at blogs, we look at magazines, we travel, we go to schools, shows. And then, we gathered, I think it was

Mathieu Lehnneur's 'Elements'
about 1,700 ideas. The first filter is that, well, they all happen at the same time. The ideas shape together with the submissions; it's a give and take. But definitely one of the very first priorities is that they are gorgeous, not beautiful in a platonic sense, they just have to be really, almost unimpeachable from a design standpoint. You look at them and say, That's a really great design process, which means it's about seeing the idea at the very end. Of course, as you know, there are also science projects in the exhibition. There are many people who don't' call themselves designers who have two PhD's in neurophysics and nanotechnology, so one second thing they all have in common is the attempt to really reach the real world. Because even in the scientists' works that you see in the exhibition you'll notice there's always a way to try and communicate with a wide audience, by any means possible. Sometimes its comfort, sometimes it's prettiness, like the SMIT solar cells, the idea that instead of covering your house with solar panels that are really ugly you can have this ivy growing on your house, or by means of humor, Paul Rottemund does the DNA Origami in the form of smilies or by means of clarity, so you have Thomas Mason doing the lithoparticle alphabet soup. So they all try to reach out. They have that in common. Then what they have in common is this attempt to be propositive, to propose something for the real future. I don't really like science fiction, but I like to think of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. So everything that you see in the show is based on hypotheses that are plausible. There's no teleportation. Even though that's my dream. But there's already the idea that nanophysics can really help designers and architects grow things. So that's plausible. Even when I show the blind date agency where people base their pairings not on sight or other profiles but on smell, the funny thing is that I found an article in The Economist two months ago that says there really is such an agency in Boston. You think it's hypothetic and then it works. So they have in common this propositive nature. Once you've filtered that, hopefully your ideas start to crystallize, then you start having very precise themes. The next skimming is according to the themes. The final skimming really starts being the imagination of the show. We're still also visual designers in a way, you try to compose things together in a way that's beautiful and makes sense, so that's a whole different way, it's really a mise en scene. The exhibition takes shape in a totally non-linear way, but in the end, if you have a strong idea from the beginning it all comes together, sort of like nanophysics.

Marie-Virginie Berbet's 'Analeptic'
Something that I wanted to bring up, is that this idea of design and science coming together was developed slowly over a year and a half with a collaboration with Seed magazine. That was a very, very important collaboration because really that taught me so much and built up the enthusiasm of the dialog. One of the things that I realized early on is that both design and science want to change their position in people's culture. Scientists wanted to stop being considered lofty and abstract; and wanted to show how engaged they were in the real world. And designers wanted to stop being considered decorators. This dialog also helped them establish a certain ground in people's culture so as not to be ignored any more, to be boxed in certain dogmatic clichés. The exhibition notes refer to a major change in human behavior that's reflected in designers' work and the objects in this collection. What sort of change in curatorial behavior is going to have to reflect that? It's a big change. And actually one of your colleagues helped me figure it out during an interview. Instead of making a statement and establishing a canon and saying, This is the way things are, it's about establishing a trajectory. I only work in a collaborative way, and in the way I like to keep things open, to present a nice comfortable environment in which designers can thrive, my catalog designer, my website designer, Yugo Nakamura, all of the designers in the show. Also I wanted to really put my foot down and say, This is what design is doing now, but then it's open. I hope that this trajectory is what I'll be remembered for, not for rules and recommendations.

Hoberman Associates' 'Emergent Surfaces'
How does that apply to digital things? I think one of the big challenges now for curators is how they're going to present digital work, work on the web. The challenge is only practical, it's not conceptual. It's a huge practical problem, and there's an example that has to do with our collection and not with the exhibition. I want to acquire the first graphic interface, Xerox Parc's Star in 1981. The computer is so obsolete, it's lovely to see, but what do I do? Do I make it run on the original computer and then go nuts because every day you have to go crazy [with maintenance], do I simulate it interactively on a computer of today, do I show a video of a period piece maybe with David Liddell or somebody else using it, so I show it in pictures? What do I do? There are many ways to do it; it's really complicated, but to me, it's only pragmatic, the problem, it has to do with migration. When something is in the present, it's much easier.

Martin Watetnberg's 'Thinking Machine 4'
To give you an example, I'm trying to develop this idea, I don't want to call them virtual acquisitions, but they're acquisitions based in the public domain. One of the biggest changes in human behavior is that more and more we don't want to own objects, but rather we want to use them and they remain in the public domain. There's not any need anymore to acquire objects, like Zipcars, even cell phones in the United States, they cost so little. I've been wanting to acquire a 747 for the collection. My idea is not to have it, there's no room and there's no need. Not everybody can afford to take it, but everybody can afford a ride to the airport to see it, everybody's seen it, there's a feeling about what a 747 is like. I almost don't need to own a specific model. It's the 747, this beautiful, gorgeous clumsy dromedary of the sky that changed the way people traveled that I feel that needs to be celebrated as a masterpiece of design. So I developed this whole idea, I went pretty deep into figuring it out. MoMA would license its name to an airline so three aircraft going through New York would be the MoMA aircraft. Maybe inside the upholstery fabric is different, the cutlery is better, the onboard library, instead of having only golf magazines has architecture and design magazines, maybe the little cart sells MoMA design store items, It's just MoMA saying, Oh, we love this plane, without needing to own it. When you develop this model, you can really not be stopped by scale anymore, which is really is one of the most important tenets of contemporary society, not to be stopped by scale.

Thomas G. Mason's 'LithoParticle Dispersions'
You touched on not including teleporting and things like that. With the speculative nature of some of these projects, does placing the museum's stamp on them worry you? When you're dealing with these future technologies you're dealing with things that might not have the applications you think they would. You take risks. I would rather be remembered for saying something would work and it didn't work than saying that something is not going to work and then it works. I even started my essay in the book showing all of the wrong predictions. I would rather take risks and say, Oh, this will work, and give confidence, rather than do the opposite. We've had quite beautiful discussions here amongst curators in the museum and with the director about taking risks, saying, Let's take risks. And let's fall on our butts, if necessary. I think it's better that way. So no, I'm not scared. Whatever it takes to make people think and have opinions I'm happy about. If there's any far out things in the exhibition, maybe in Design for Debate, the concepts of nanotechnology and how it can transform our bodies. But, you shouldn't take that; it's not about objects that will happen, it's about building scenarios that make us think about how we should deal with nanotechnology.

Janne Kyttanen's 'V Bag'
Also, you mentioned this earlier, there are lots of disciplines represented where the people who come from those disciplines would not consider what they do design, (such as) coders and software engineers. How do the objects coming from those fields straddle the line between being functional as a great website or Google Maps mashup and also a design? Design is about communication; it's about this extra step to reach people. That's why I felt the right to include things that were not born as design in this particular exhibition. And it's very funny because the scientists and artists were happy. I thought of instances in the past where I did design shows and wanted to include artists, I tell you, there's one artist that did not want to be included because he said, Oh, it's a design show, it's not art. He regretted it terribly. There's still this nuttiness, artists think that they're higher than designers, but it's changing. The umbrella of design has become a desirable umbrella for artists, scientists, engineers, to the point that there's a book called Sensorium, (and in it) there's an essay by Peter Galison who is a science historian and much more at Harvard, and it's a beautiful essay about nanotechnology and it's a beautiful essay because it talks about the concept of nanofacture, and it says how scientists, because of nanophysics and the possibility of

James King's Dressing The Meat Of Tomorrow
building things atom by atom, are just becoming designers, so it really is interesting that design is the one that unites so many different forces today. Just the idea of making. Another beautiful neologism is thinkering, that's John Seely Brown, this idea of experimenting with a goal that is also communicative, not just theoretical. Notice I'm not saying aesthetic, I'm saying communicative, because I think that what makes design design, is communication once again, not beauty. There's also beauty, and beauty can be a way to communicate, but it's communication.At what point in putting together this show did you say to yourself, Wow, we've got a really great representation of the state of design here?Whenever you start thinking of a show you don't think of a show ever as a landmark or a blockbuster, anything like that, you think of a show that gets your juices going, it really gets you excited. The concept forms itself as you go, it's a work in progress, and you have no clue as to how it's going to be received. To be totally honest with you I realized this was going to be a special show a day and a half before the opening, because I started to see it coming together and I realized it was really good. This is like "Mutant Materials," it's another little leap. And it continues "Mutant Materials" in a way, because that was a portrait of the state of design at that time. What was happening was designers were starting to design materials themselves, and not only objects. Today, they're starting to design the inner laws that create behaviors and objects; it's going even further into the deeper scale of design. So this show probably couldn't have happened before, because there are cycles in history; when you're in my position all you do is observe and something happens at some point and if you're lucky enough and have your antennas up at that time you catch it.

Boym Brother's 'Babel Blocks'
It seems like this is a pretty wide-ranging show, it encompasses a lot. From my limited view, I don't think I've seen anything that's deigned to tackle this wide a group of things. It's not for me to say; I haven't seen it either. The way I see museums and design exhibitions, it's really like an amazing network, we all have our functions and we all do things differently. Like the Victorian Albert is great at doing the sweeping historical shows, design and Surrealism, Modernism, now they're doing the Cold War, they do that best. The Design Museum, right now it's changing but there was this interdisciplinarity under [former director] Alice Rawsthorn so they were doing Phillip Treacy hats and the Eames exhibition so they had great graphic design shows, Peter Saville, they were really looking at design this multifaceted way, and now Deyan [Sudjic, director] is trying to, he's done Zaha Hadid, so they do that. And then you go to the Denver Museum, they're the ones that do postmodernism, which we don't do. Then you go to the Cooper-Hewitt, they have a more historical mandate, so we all do different things Centre Pompidou does different things. This is what I do best. I'm good at making this kind of, I really consider myself a reporter in a way, no reporting is ever objective, but what reporters are good at doing, if they have that talent, is synthesis. They're able to catch this broad view and put it together that marks this moment in time. That's what I do best. So, very humbly, we all do our thing. No, I haven't seen another show like this. I'm glad to be put in my own little tassel in this big puzzle.

Rudolf Bannasch andLeif Kniese's 'Aqua Ray'
cruise to the exhibition's website.

Placement of Special Education Students in Arts Classes

First, whenever a teacher receives a special education requiring accommodations, the teacher should be given a copy of the IEP and specific accommodations that are to be provided. If the teacher has questions about procedures for providing those accommodations, the resource room teacher or other special education contact should be available.

If the student has behaviors of concern, again, look at the IEP for a behavior plan that addresses the behaviors. A behavior plan should list behavior control techniques that are now being used with the student.

If the student has been assigned an aide, the IEP should specify if the aide is to accompany the student to general education classes. The aide should also have training regarding implementation of the behavior plan. If the student is displaying behaviors that may be dangerous in the art classroom, document those behaviors and meet with the special education contact to discuss if the behaviors can be addressed, and if the student should continue in your class.

Last, try and determine if the student is benefiting from the class. If the student is participating in his/her own way, you may find it easier to deal with behaviors.

Address any follow up questions you have at our toll-free number 888-320-8384.

Tom Freeman
Office of Special Education/
Early Intervention Services

High School Theatre, Historical Re-enactments, and Economic Community Development

Historical re-enactments bring Clio's past to life while focusing on its future

Read about it in the Flint Journal article.

Using this blog to continue conversations around the VPAA credit

I'd like to consider using this site more broadly, i.e. beyond the design team, to continue dialogue across the state concerning various aspects of implementation, alignment, assessment, online course offering development, etc.

The possibilities are endless and we would benefit I think from a place where those interested can find a community for discussion of these issues.

What do you all think?