A page for all of us to post something unexpected or otherwise inspiring.
For example:
http://www.barnesfoundation.org/ed_main.html The Barnes Collection in Philadelphia is the biggest private collection of impressionists in the world, and he built a building on his property to show the collection for the primary purpose of education. It is interesting because art museums are usually seen as somewhat untouchable, but here by this picture you can see the set up as a livingroomesque with almost cluttered paintings can change the experience.
Speaking of amazing collections of french art ... in Philadelphia, the biggest collection of Rodin sculptures outside France is at the Rodin Museum. It's technically not off the beaten track-- it's not far from the big Philadelphia Museum of Art (the steps of which were made famous by the Rocky movies. But it's a wonderful space.
Further off the path, there are the Wagner Free Institute of Science a nineteenth-century natural history museum that is justifiably called a 'museum of a museum'. Very very intereting for how effective it is, despite having avoided all the trends in exhibit design over the last century.
Then there's the inimitable Mütter museum. Not for the weak of stomach--lots of unusual anatomical specimens, collected under the College of Physicians.
Finally, in London, the very early and impressive personal collection of architect and artist John Soane. The Soane Museum, circa 1833, is a mind-blowing and overflowing collection that can keep you entranced for a long time. Not built as a modern museum-- it was Soane's house and workspace. Come to think of it, this really is a genre of museums-- those built by iconoclasts who are willing to share their spaces (at least after) they die. The Mercer Museum also comes to mind in this category (do a google image search, the website isn't very good). And the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Japan... a few of my favorit things. MB.
This New York Times article about the spread of wireless hot spots includes the amazing to me fact that DFW airport can now charge $2 for 20 minutes of power at the airport!
Washingtonpost.com article about no gains on test scores from using educational software. $2 billion/year industry. Deb worked on this report.
If you are feeling up to it, post any photos you want to share in flickr. I have created an account for all of us to use: educ303x2007. the password is stanford
I'm trying to get a fast and easy way (not necessarily elegant) for all of us to build a repository of photos for this class.
Wisconsin's School Design Research Studio: http://schoolstudio.engr.wisc.edu/
Design Share: http://www.designshare.com/index.php/home
- Jason
http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/parentsteachers/activities/disc_guide.html Here are some fun science and engineering activities from a Teachers' Guide and Family Guide I worked on. I thought they might work well in a museum. Also, I didn't think of it at the time, but the Family Guide is really all about turning your own home into a learning space!
http://pbskids.org/zoom/grownups/engineering/ And here are some of the activities that we used to lead at the Boston Museum of science. (Rolf, maybe some of these will provide some inspiration for your masters' project!)
-Nicole
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1nMCKvvWSk Larry Leifert's comments about creativity and technology were interesting. An undergraduate stanford student used youtube for an election campaign and then supplemented it with facebook. The youtube clip is quite clever. I wonder how much an outsider could learn about the candidates from such spaces and if this could be translated into the larger political picture. This also made me think about the polling place and all of the missed opportunities there. It doesn't seem like specific candidates should be campaigning but perhaps the polls could be a place to teach about citizenship? Just a thought. -Christy
http://www.ideo.com/media/nightline.asp This website has an except from a nightline episode that focused on Ideo and took the viewer through Ideo's brainstorming and design of a new shopping cart. I think it's a great enhancement to the Ideo reading and really brings to life how they look at creating innovative design.
I have a copy of Ch 9 on personas if anyone wants to borrow it.
While attending a class on Global Work today, two fascinating resources were highlighted that I wanted to share: IMD's Cultural Perspecitve Questionnaire is a fascintaing tool designed to help individuals and teams understand their own cultural biases.
Geert Hofstede was described as the first researcher to try and quantify cultural differences using several scales that he developed. Though his system has come under much criticism it is still thought of as one of the better systematic approaches to understanding these differences.
-Dan April 25
The technology I mentioned in today's class is an anonymous collaboration software tool. I've seen it used in corporate settings as a powerful brainstorming tool - it levels the playing field so that the best ideas are rewarded as opposed to the ideas from the people with the most formal power (or loudest voices!)
Classroom 127 would be perfect for this tool. Another university that has implemented the tool with great success is Queen's in Canada - Greg Warman
Potential new SUSE faculty. Her work looks relevant to our course. Dr. Tatar is a methodological pragmatist and uses physiological, interview, survey and experimental techniques as well as observation to conduct research in a range of topics. She is currently an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech and, by courtesy, Psychology. Overall, her work can be thought of as falling into three categories: Making Mechanisms (designing new ways to do things with technology), Making Meaning (analyzing complex new systems), and Making Methods (creating new ways of coming to know about phenomena of interest). Recent mechanisms focus on the potential of handheld connectivity to help classroom learning.
Monday, May 7, 2007 12:00 – 1:15 PM CERAS Room 100B Lunch is provided
-Christy
I'm not sure if anyone will find this interesting besides me... (I used to teach at this school) but this is a link to a BLOG that is used for assignments in an alternative high school in Denver. http://hobbes.dpsk12.org/CLABLog/discuss/
I think it's interesting because there is no feedback from teachers posted on the BLOG, so I wonder how it's really being used. What do kids really get out of doing this exercise? The things they write about are supposed to be current issues/events (I think) but their submissions are very minimalistic and are often full of grammatical mistakes and inappropriate topics. I just think this whole thing is kind of weird... Anyone else agree? How could BLOGs (or Wikis for that matter) be used more effectively in schools that serve kids with low skills and high needs?
-Sonia
This is very very cool and could serve us well in a couple of ways. One, it might be interesting to look at these models of information communication for direct inspiration in learning spaces (e.g. how could a space facilitate cognitive mapping). Two - and more exciting - we could endeavor to create a periodic table for learning spaces (e.g. the color-coded categories could include things like: Present, Collaborate, Exchange, Read and the specific designs in the table could be things like 'The Coffee Nook', 'The Globe Theatre', etc.)
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html <<<<<<<
You can go and take the training and get a better idea about the machines we might be seeing at the prison. -NS http://www.stanford.edu/group/prl/using/index.htm =======
http://www.stanford.edu/group/prl/cgi-bin/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page >>>>>>>
This is a program developed by some people at MIT - it's supposed to be a program to help 8 yr olds and up to develop animations and games. I haven't played with it yet, but it looks cool - It seems like a junior version of flash. http://scratch.mit.edu/about -rolf
From today's San Francisco Chronicle, the budget line item for corrections and rehabilitation department (prison) is about to surpass the budget line for all UC/CSU and Jr. Colleges combined.
"The Promise of Higher Education at San Quentin" This 5-minute video features Jody Lewen, who runs the prison education project (for higher ed) at San Quentin. It shows the prisoners in their classes and being interviewed about the AA program. It's of fairly good quality, and might be interesting to people going on the San Quentin field trip in June. http://www.urel.berkeley.edu/haasawards/public-service-award/ --Elizabeth
This website shows the work of a guy/company that does interactive media for museum learning. The projects seem pretty cool, and especially relevant for our CDM group. http://bradlarson.com/ -rolf
Visual Complexity is a directory of applied visualizations, categorized by discipline. http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/
New York Times article form Sunday May 20 about crumbling infrastrucutre in Universities in West Africa. Interesting Examples of how space impacts culture and then how can culture/learners can make things happen in spite of space : http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/world/africa/20senegal.html
100th anniversary of Montessorri education: http://www.slate.com/id/2166489
http://www.stanford.edu/group/sonia/examples/McFarlaClass.html
This is a website that displays some of Dan McFarland's work on classroom interactions. He is the coauthor of a program called SoNIA that helps researchers turn their dynamic or longitudinal data into something visual. In Dan's case, he uses the program to show the different types of interactions that take place during a class. Dan is a professor here at SUSE. I think it is interesting to think about the types of interactions that take place currently in classrooms and the types of interactions we would hope to have in classrooms and think about how the space might help or inhibit these types of interactions. Sara
This Sunday's New York Times magazine(May 20 2007) included a design for a future house. The authros explained their design using personas and scenarios. article
I have uploaded a ridiculous 30 photos to our Flickr account taken inside the two prototype preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Reggio Emilia is known for emphasizing the importance of aesthetic beauty, caring citizenship, and creative play. The photos are a far cry from what we generally see in the United States -- cluttered preschools full of plastic toys and furniture. Keep in mind the art project you see were created by kids from birth to 3 years! -- Elizabeth
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kafai/kids/KIDSthemes.html "Kids' Interactive Design Studio is a research group at the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies under the direction of Yasmin Kafai dedicated to design, implement and explore computer-rich environments for play and learning for young children." -Amanda
Interesting recognition by American School Board Journal's annual premier, ‘ Learning by Design .’ The desire to have Schools are being highlighted that design their new buildings to support the academic needs of the students as well as promoting the diversity of the student body. Cost breakdowns are shown. The high school illustrated in the following link comes from a well respected district east of Seattle: http://www.asbj.com/lbd/2007/pdf/118.pdf -Christy