Free the Information (in Museums and Schools)
The museum wants the site to transform how the public interacts with an institution that can sometimes seem forbidding and monolithic.
“The notion of opening up the museum’s singular voice is really the driving thought behind this,” said Allegra Burnette, creative director of digital media for the museum, who has been working on the redesign for a year and a half. She added, “We’re opening the doors, though not necessarily throwing them open.”
The site, which she and other MoMA officials stress is a work in progress, will now include what its designers call a “social bar” at the bottom, which when clicked will expand to show images and other information that users can “collect” and share after registering for a free account at the Web site (moma.org). A user could build a portfolio of Walker Evans photographs or Elizabeth Murray paintings and send them to friends, Ms. Burnette said. The site will also eventually make it easy for users both casual and scholarly to trace lines of interest, digging up more information about works from publications and curators, she added.
Put aside all the social networking / Web 2.0 features MoMA is adding to its site, and it’s really about giving viewers more functionality and control over how they interact with the museum’s collection. MoMA and other museums realize that they will need to stop treating their audience as passive consumers of information.
First Google Map Discovered – Created in 1652
I enjoy looking at historic maps and other visual displays of information. I was browsing online images from the National Gallery of Art’s current exhibit “Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age” and was startled to see “A Bird’s-Eye View of Amsterdam” painted (around 1652), by Jan Micker.
Micker’s work certainly parallels the Google Map satellite view. Especially noteworthy are his realistic depiction of details, shadows of clouds and the large key with drop shadow in the lower right corner. Not bad considering he lacked an aerial perspective. He was inspired by a similar work (minus shadows) from 1538 by Cornelis Anthonisz.
Below is a current Google Map of Amsterdam for comparison.
Note: the Google maps faces north. Micker’s view faces south.
Click map to enlarge or go to Google map of Amsterdam
Why Study Algebra?
President Obama’s Federal Budget 2010 – Education
Education continues to dominate the news with the release of President Barack Obama's proposed 2010 budget – "A New Era of Responsibility."
“The path to jobs and growth begins in America’s classrooms. The decisions we make about how to educate our children will shape our future for generations to come. They will determine not just whether our children have the chance to fulfill their God-given potential, or whether our workers have the chance to build a better life for their families, but whether we, as a nation, will remain in the 21st Century, the kind of global economic leader that we were in the twentieth. If we want to out-compete the world tomorrow, we must out-educate the world today.” ~ President Barack Obama
Click for Office of Management and Budget Fact Sheet Download Fy10_education
This budget comes on the heels of the recent stimulus package which devoted $115B for education. Diagram from Education Week. Click chart to enlarge.