Media Arts Education

Archive for May, 2009

Mapping cultural bloggers & hard bloggin’ in Europe

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

MediaArtsEdu-at-LabforCulture-map

I am very happy to see Media Arts Education on the European cultural blogging map developed by one of my favorite European community Web sites, LabforCulture.org. The new research in focus at LabforCulture is on cultural blogging:
“The idea is to collect the cultural blogs and build a digital overview for everyone to use. To do this we are asking you to add the cultural blogs you like to the map. Currently it has the blogs of the featured bloggers in the series and other cultural blogs selected by our editorial team. So add your favourites and forward onto others! Finally, all the interviews carried out by Annette Wolfsberger, as well as our conclusions, will be published in a print on demand format on LabforCulture at the end of the series. “ (via LabforCulture.org)

Posted in Blogs, Digital Media Culture, Projects | No Comments »

Some reflections on using Twitter in education and research

Friday, May 29th, 2009

As I posted in the sidebar of this blog some time ago, I am exloring twitter for a while now. There’s a lot of information to grasp, a lot of inspiring stuff, and quite a few Twitter updates rather turn me off. I sometimes wonder why I opted to follow a particular person. Of course a lot of stuff published is rather boring to me, though it seems to be the price to pay. Obviously there is a big interest of people to twitter answers to the question “what are you doing / what’s on your mind”, and of course it might be perceived an act of reflection plus it is good for bringing together different fields, to the benefit of the research agenda. However, I am not interested in twittering about what I am doing, rather than what I consider important to my research and practice in a particular field. I like being active part in the kind of knowledge creation community, hash tagging issues I consider important or useful to colleagues. That might sound very academic, but as a researcher I think about micro blogging to facilitate knowledge creation in education, research and art practice in a particular project context or on a specific topic, that is, a team (or closed community) working together for a while, for example a group of students or researchers. I wonder what question(s) might replace “what they are doing / what’s on your mind?” best for my aims.

Firstly, I think it is all about addressing the right question(s) to fit best to a particular research topic or educational aim. It depends on the particular aim why one uses Twitter or other micro blogging systems.
Secondly, I think part of the problem is, that Twitter is both information space for knowledge development as well as a tool for communication and collaboration, which makes it much more complex to handle properly according to the very (educational) goals to aspire to. On Facebook Lori Kent once suggested “what’s on your mind” should read “write one line of poetry” for a day, which I consider very useful, not only in the arts context. Here are some of my ideas for new questions to focus on:

-“How is you project developing?
-“What did you learn today?”
-“What did you learn from your team/community today?
-“What did you question today?”
-“What media/art project did you work on today?
-“What quote/image/poem/medium did inspire you today?

…

This list is to be continued. Another helpful question was addressed in a different project context, but inspired my thoughts on using Twitter in my teaching: “What have your students taught you about technology?” is a question addressed in the Edutopia’s Digital Generation Project developed for educators which seems to be very useful for self reflection and evaluation. Here are some answers on the project’s Web site.

Concerning microblogging in education and learning I think of multi media extensions in terms of integrating audio visual data, in order to overcome the text based learning and communication space. Just beacause we do communicate audio visually. What would it look like? I will come back to this issue later.

P.S. Please note, due to the extraordinary amount of spam posted to my twitter account, and in order to better manage inappropriate content I closed my Twitter update.

Posted in Academia, Across the curricula, Digital Media Culture, Teaching & Learning, Uncategorized, micro blogging | No Comments »

How YOU fell in love with Media Art

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Lucky me to be able to get back to the blog… As you might have noticed it was quite on Media Arts Education during the last weeks. Finally the blog got a new software update, which caused problems – big thanks to miga who managed to solve it..

However, here is a post I wanted to publish quite some time ago (bit late though, but I like the idea of it) delivered through The Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts web site. Please find below the invitation.

media art love NL

“TELL US how YOU fell in love with media art!
Dear Media Art Lover

Prepare yourself because there is a celebration coming up. From Friday the 8th of May till Sunday the 10th of May, The Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk) will be celebrating it’s 30th birthday. We won’t let our birthday pass by unnoticed. That’s why we invite you to come over to the NIMk and celebrate with us!

We would like to receive a birthday present too but we do not fancy cards or flowers. No, our perfect gift is YOU showing why you love media art so much. With ‘How I fell in love with media art’, you can show us and others that have their heads in the clouds, what made you fall in love and why your heart beats faster when thinking of media art. You’re free in the way you express yourself so that you can be really creative with your ode, serenade, poetry, love art or whatever form of expression you have in mind. Ideally, we would prefer your creative expression as a video (2 minutes max). You can send us your video or upload it at Youtube and forward the link to us instead. It is also possible to express your love in a short text and sms it to +31 619159762. You could even mail us a picture as well. Mail your picture or Youtube link to jpeterse at nimk.nl.

The received expressions of love will be showcased in the birthday program. The most wondrous, funniest and prettiest contributions will receive special treatment at the celebrations. You will be able to see your own and other contributions at our Facebook account. Not only will our Facebook profile and Youtube channel be an inspiring place for your contributions, we will also keep you posted about ‘How I fell in love with media art’ and the upcoming birthday event.

We look forward to seeing a whole lot of love. Every contribution is greatly appreciated! We also hope to see you on the 8th, 9th and 10th of May during our birthday celebrations.”

Via The Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts web site.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »