Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson

You will enjoy this 20-minute talk by Sir Ken Robinson at the TED Conference in 2007. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started in 1984 as a conference that brings together people from those three worlds. Since then it has become larger and broader.

The annual TED conference brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. The TED website makes the best talks and performances from the conferences available to the public for free. More than 200 talks from the TED archive are currently available. Robinson is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He’s worked with governments in Europe and Asia, international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and national and state education systems, and cultural organizations that include the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and UNESCO. He also was Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick, one of the five leading research universities in the UK, for 12 years.

In this video, a must-see for every parent and teacher, Robinson makes a profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity. Enjoy it and share it with colleagues, principals, teachers, and parents you know.

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You Need to Go to Unigo

The New York Times recently featured a piece about Unigo and the 20-something kid who dreamed up the idea, Jordan Goldman. I immediately checked out the site, and initially had trouble getting on. It might have sensed that at my age, I had no business being on a website created and maintained by college students.

But I tried again later, and it let me in. I have two college students, for crying out loud. And a $67,000-a-year tuition payment. I deserve a break today.

What I saw in Unigo was fun and promising, a classic example of Web 2.0 — user-generated content — about to take off from the crowded Internet runway but with good genes and youthful enthusiasm bearing it aloft.

Goldman, a graduate of Wesleyan University, spent a couple of years after graduation in Europe, then returned to New York City to develop his business plan and go begging for investors. His plan worked, and today he runs an office of about 25 young people who manage Unigo and a crew of intern correspondents spread out over the nation’s colleges and reporting back in with videos, photos and updates.

The site thrives on student-written critiques of their own colleges, and already would appear to be one step ahead of those on-paper college guides we all used in the past. Here’s what Goldman says in the Times piece about his site:

“My whole family chipped in for me to go to college,” he said. “They were saving from when I was 2 or 3 years old. That the best resource for a four-year, $200,000 decision are these books — with no photos, no videos, no interactivity, only three to five pages per school on average, fully updated usually once every several years — just doesn’t make the grade. This is the most important decision people that age have ever made, and the information is just not there.”

Here’s how it works:

Each Unigo editor has a list of 10 colleges (including, always, his or her own alma mater) to oversee; their most important task may be finding an unpaid intern on each campus willing to act as a liaison and an occasional reality-checker for Unigo’s efforts. The real masterstroke, though, was the purchase of a hundred Flip video cameras, which were delivered to the on-campus interns themselves with a minimum of instructions. The results are not only vivid in a way no guidebook can match but also, in the way of the generation that produced them, often guilelessly intimate.

The point is to provide students, and presumably their parents, with an unvarnished look at real life at the colleges they’re considering — something the colleges themselves are not good at providing. Who can blame them? As a parent who drove her kids to nearly every college on the East Coast, only to find that the tours were a bit too rah-rah superficial, I’d rather check out a school on a site like Unigo before packing up the van and heading out who-knows-where. Even if that means I might be watching someone talk online about the campus suicides or the black-white divide that still exists. I’d much rather get to the truth about a place before my kids get there, rather than after they’ve moved in.

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Care2 — The Power of Petition

I received an email today from the producers of [Title of Show], a Broadway show I recently went to see that was terribly clever, funny and unique. The email announced that the show is scheduled to close in October, way too premature as far as I’m concerned, and asking me to sign a petition on behalf of the show to get them more exposure. Specifically, the producers hope to get a performance from the show on the “Ellen” show sometime in the near future, and thereby stave off the retreat of investors and the show’s demise.

I clicked on the link, which took me to Care2, a petition site that hosts petitions of all sorts, giving you a chance to sign, write a sentiment and press a big “sign” button to get the whole thing out there. Of course, you also get a chance to email your friends and ask them to pass it on.

After signing the petition on behalf of my Broadway pals, I started to roam around Care2 to look for more causes and petitions. What I found there was both educational and moving.

Care2 lists and features petitions and causes of all kinds, from the about-to-close Broadway show to hunger and poverty worldwide. Among the causes are human rights, poverty, women’s rights, political issues, children, and more.

How about a petition to urging Congress to protect the Arctic Refuge, now threatened by President Bush’s budget proposal, which calls for drilling to resume in the refuge in 2010?  Cool. The Arctic Refuge is the most important denning habitat for this country’s vanishing polar bears.

Oxfam America is there with a number of petitions, one of which asks the U.S. Senate to co-sponsor the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act, which would require the public disclosure of payments made between oil, gas and mining companies, and their host governments.

The William J. Clinton Foundation is also there, among its causes a pilot subsidy program in Tanzania, to combat the high rate of deaths there from malaria.
Care2 has its own petition, with more than 17,000 signatures, urging the UN Security County and countries neighboring Zimbabwe to put an end to the bloodshed in that country, in which more than 200,000 people have been displaced, 86 opposition supporters killed, 10,000 people injured, and 500 women and girls sexually abused or raped.

Teachers and students should jump on this bandwagon, which incidentally currently has more than 9 million members and more than 29 signatures on petitions. You can join Care2, participate in discussions, find friends, and learn about the world around you, the power of the written word and the Web.

How awesome is that?

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An Interesting Twitter Development…

US Senator Barack Obama campaigning in New Ham...

Image via Wikipedia

OK — this is interesting.

I’m not much of a Twitter user, sending Tweets there a few times a week and scanning the people and groups I follow (Grammar Girl, PROpen Mic, MakeUseOf and a few others) for interesting article and posting ideas.
But last night, I decided to search for Twitterers to follow. My first addition was Barack Obama, who I thought would be a great friend to have on Twitter. Sure enough — less than an hour later, “he” was following me. Or his campaign people were following me, anyway.
This morning, I woke up, signed on to my email account, and saw a notice that Obama Girl was now following me on Twitter. OK — that makes sense. A bit unusual, but now I’m following her as well.

But then — by lunchtime, SarahPalinFeed was following me. Now how the heck did that happen? Somehow, I felt violated.

The beauty of Twitter is that you don’t have to follow someone back.

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A Quick Word About Wordle…

All right,so the Web is full of useless little online gadgets we dismiss outright. At first glance, I thought Wordle might be one of these gadgets when it was first pointed out to me by my colleague at the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center, John Resanovich. But no — once again, John had a clue about what might catch on, webwise.

Now I see everyone using Wordle, an online application created by IBM’s senior software engineer Jonathan Feinberg. Using text entered by its users, Wordle creates “beautiful word clouds” that show you the frequency at which words occur within someone’s text. The more often a word occurs, the bigger it appears in the cloud.

So you can enter the text from one of your blog posts, and see what happens. Or, as I did, you can simply create a cute little Wordle using words with a theme. What you see here is my Wordle, created when I added words to describe how I feel about being an empty-nester these days.

At Wired.com recently, the editors had a great idea and entered the words from the keynote speeches delivered at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and the results were interesting. Readers noticed, among other things, the tiny word “men” in Michelle Obama’s Wordle and the large word “man” (reflecting its frequent use) in Sarah Palin’s Wordle. Take a look at both Wordles here:

The only problem with Wordle at the moment is that it’s not that dynamic. You can save your Wordle by doing a screenshot of it or by printing it. But because IBM owns the rights to Wordle, you can’t make a JPEG or use it in a more dynamic way. Check out the website, especially its gallery of Wordles created by hundreds of users. Very cool.


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Will Technology Redefine Art?

I’m not a great artist. Or am I?
If you walked into Damian Powers’ Commercial Art classroom at Southern Westchester BOCES (where I work as PR coordinator in my day job), you would smell creativity in the air. This remarkable classroom is home to dozens of iMac desktop computers, their huge, 24-inch screens an irresistible invitation to any student wishing to create.
And create they have in this busy place. Last year, Mr. Powers’ students brought home numerous awards and honors, including two Audience Choice Awards in the 2008 Lower Hudson Region’s Youth Media Arts Show, third-place honors in a competition held by the Association for Career and Technical Education, and nine winning students posters chosen by the Westchester County Coalition for Drug and Alcohol Free Youth for its yearlong “Collateral Damage” public service initiative.
In nearly every case, the student artwork was created with the help of technology. In Powers’ classes, students primarily work with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator on those beautiful iMac desktops.
Which brings me to my point: Could I be an artist like one of Mr. Powers’ students? Although I can’t sketch or draw worth a damn, there might be hope even for me.
This week’s eSchool News article, “Technology makes art education a bigger draw,” points out that new and emerging software being used by art students is making “artistic production accessible to a far greater number of interested students and aspiring artists than ever before.”
At the same time, writes Senior Editor Laura Devaney, traditional media, such as charcoal drawing and oil painting, are being enhanced rather than thrown aside by this technology, which “encourages and facilitates the acquisition of more advanced, traditional techniques and skills by far more talented beginners.”
One teacher in Devaney’s story says:

I don’t think technology is replacing traditional art instruction, but I think it’s a really good piece to use alongside it. …It’s really a skill they need to go on and be competitive with the rest of the world.”

It’s possible, say educators, to strike a balance between traditional artistic techniques and learning new technology-based techniques, such as digital imaging.
At Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, which introduced digital image making into its curriculum about 10 years ago, students practice traditional techniques as freshmen and sophomores, then move on to learning digital art techniques as juniors and seniors.
The eSchool article also takes a look at Fablevision’s “Animation-ish” software program, which lets students create their own animation. In Roanoke, Va., where fifth-grade students use the software, one teacher said it “permits kids to create original and meaningful drawings, doodles, and even complex animations. It encourages exactly the kind of adventurous, blank-page thinking I try to generate in my classroom.”
Other schools are using DrawPlus, desktop publishing, design, and graphics software that also provides teachers with free resources including lesson plans, guides, handout sheets, and project ideas.
The IPAX education program, from Sony Pictures Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation, recently announced a new online mentoring program set to begin this winter.
The program, Animation Mentor, pairs top students from 18 IPAX member schools from around the world with Sony Pictures artists, who provide online mentoring, training, and guidance. The program is designed to help students develop and sharpen skills they will need in digital-arts careers.
There could be hope for me yet.


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Techno-Impersonal

BlackBerry user Dou...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

During the past week, I have suffered in a minor way from laptop withdrawal. My mother was visiting me from Florida (which explains my absence from this blog), and I was thoroughly part of the real world — Broadway shows, bus tours, dining out, shopping, conversing, catching up. Every now and then, it would occur to me that my laptop might miss me, but I was bonding with my 75-year-old Mom. And yet, when I sat down to check daily emails and write one freelance piece, she said stuff like: “Wow, does anyone talk anymore?” Or: “Are you always online?”

This week, National Public Radio’s Scott Cameron, Editor of “Talk of the Nation,” noted in the program’s blog that someone in his building “has been known to sit in one of the stalls in the men’s room and click-click-click on his Blackberry while – er – doing his business.”

Why did Cameron bring this up? Because according to a new Sheraton hotels survey of 6,500 traveling executives, 35 percent of them say they would choose their Blackberry (or similar PDA) over their spouses. Another 87 percent said they bring their devices into the bedroom, 84 percent check their emails before going to sleep and 80 percent check their emails as soon as they get up, “before their first cup of coffee.”

Weirder still — 85% peek at their e-mail in the middle of the night. I thought I was bad.

On the flip side, say the Sheraton folks, 84 percent of these professionals said the technology allows them to spend more time out of the office and enjoy more quality time and flexibility with their family and friends.

Mom — I don’t even own a Blackberry. Not yet.

But, as NPR’s Cameron points out, “this is so much bigger than the Blackberry…laptops, PSPs, cell phone, portable DVD players, iPods, all tend to make their way into the covers” (or under the sheets).

Just check out this New York Times story, “Laptop Slides Into Bed in Love Triangle,” as proof. And note that it was published in August 2006.

Send me your comments — do you spend more time with your technology than with your loved ones? Would love to hear your stories.



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Librarians are Cool

Libraries almost invariably contain long aisle...Image via Wikipedia

I know I’m dating myself here, but I don’t remember ever having a cool librarian as a kid. Instead, the librarians I knew had pursed lips, shushed people for a living, and slept with the Dewey Decimal System.

Not today. Librarians are Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, wiki-ing, and definitely not sleeping with the Dewey Decimal System.

If you want proof, take a look at the Library page of the Online Education Database, which currently contains reviews of 1,081 programs from 86 accredited online colleges. There, you’ll find tons of references written by and for librarians about using social media in libraries around the country.

Here’s what the Library page says about Twitter, for example:

Twitter is a free communication and social networking tool which allows you to convey short messages of up to 140 characters to your circle of friends via the Twitter website, SMS, email, IM, or other Twitter client. Messages appear not only within your profile on Twitter, but are sent to your community of followers who have signed up to receive your updates. Often referred to as microblogging, this new phenomenon has caught on with over 300,000 users on Twitter alone including Barack Obama and John Edwards. Twitter recently made the cut as one of Time’s Best 50 Websites of 2007. Librarians are using it to communicate at conferences and events and to keep up with developments in the field, and libraries have begun using it to promote their services.

Among their listings are librarian-only applications and networks like:

Shakespeare High Cafeteria: This online tribute to Shakespeare features active discussions about Shakespeare news, book clubs, a creative writing center, “staff lounge,” study help and teaching ideas.

Readers Read: Browse forum topics like publishing industry, general fiction, mystery/thriller, children’s books and nonfiction.

TeacherLibrarianNing: Educators and librarians get together on this network, where you can join groups, post photos, upload videos and more.

The Shifted Librarian: Librarians connect through this blog about library news, trends and of course, books.

Librarian Facebook Application: This Facebook app connects you to other librarians who can answer your search questions.

They also list a number of social media sites for librarians and book-lovers, including:

Shelfari: This blog about books and book collecting has a MySpace page and a Facebook application.

GoodReads: Keep track of what you and your friends are reading through this online networking site.

BookJetty: BookJetty lets users organize, rate and review books and even look up books in the site’s database of over 300 libraries around the world. Users also get a blog that lets them show off a “bookshelf” to friends.

MySpace Books: This ultimate social networking site has a page just for books, connecting readers, authors and those in the book industry.

Books iRead: Another Facebook app that lets you rate, review, and share books you’ve read.

You can also catch a number of 21st century posts on the site, including these:

50 Ways to Use the Wii In Your Library

100 Essential Firefox Add-Ons for Librarians

e-Learning Reloaded: Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Info Junkies, Researchers & Students

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

Need any more proof that librarians are cool? I don’t think so.  Now shush!


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Ambient Intimacy? Guilty as Charged

SwurlImage by gniliep via Flickr

I was fascinated by Sunday’s New York Times article, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” in which writer Clive Thompson examines the increasing use of social media like Facebook and Twitter. Guilty as charged — it seems the more I use them, the more I rely on them.

The piece looks back at Facebook’s decision to introduce the “News Feed” tool, which initially created a firestorm from users who felt that constant updates about their activities on Facebook was an intrusion. But then, just as suddenly, the tide turned.

In essence, Facebook users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. Why?

Thompson’s piece notes that scientists have a name for this kind of nonstop online contact: “ambient awareness.”

It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye. Facebook is no longer alone in offering this sort of interaction online. In the last year, there has been a boom in tools for “microblogging”: posting frequent tiny updates on what you’re doing.

Twitter, of course, is the premiere site for microblogging, where more than 2 million users provide brief updates about themselves, their work, their daily lives, sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis.

The Times article also notes that in 1998, the anthropologist Robin Dunbar argued that every human being has a limit on the number of people he or she can personally know at any one time.  Dunbar estimated that our maximum number of connections would average 150, which is now known as the “Dunbar number.”

So, Thompson asks, are people who use Facebook and Twitter increasing their Dunbar number, because they can keep track of more people? Try adding the number of contacts you have on Facebook and Twitter, as Thompson did for his article. He had 301 contacts on both sites, more than double the Dunbar number.

Check out the Times piece and think about your expanding world for a few minutes.


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Bookmark BigThink

BigThink is a Web 2.0 site still in its beta phase, but which shows great promise. I love this site, and became a member moments after sorting through it.  I hope it sticks around.

The idea behind BigThink is to provide access to interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers on a wide variety of topics, from politics to faith to the environment. Assembling and videotaping a big list of top-name experts, BigThink features answers and discussions with these people, but you get to start at least some of the conversations. You can respond to the interviewee, respond to a responder or ask your own question or add your own idea to the mix, and see what happens.

I browsed through BigThink’s categories, and found Harrison Ford discussing his mentors, Matt Bai of The New York Times discussing who has the power in Washington, humorist Mo Rocca talking about sports and steroids, “Nightline’s” Cynthia McFadden speaking about what’s wrong with mainstream media, and Sen. Ted Kennedy talking about love and community.

I immediately created a profile page for myself, so I can contribute my two cents’ worth to the conversations taking place on this groundbreaking website. I also created a question that I hope gets some air time with an expert: What will be the legacy of No Child Left Behind?

I will stay tuned.

BigThink is not just a tool for personal reflection. It’s a tool that I hope to see used in college and high school classroom discussions, as a launching pad for studies of politics, government, ecology, science, technology, space and even collaboration.

Don’t miss this one.  It’s worth checking out.

An addendum: Many thanks to Robert French of PROpenmic for pointing out a January New York Times piece about BigThink and how it all got started. A great read.


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