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Art As Work

On education, multimedia, and the future // A blog by Brian Hughes
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20 posts
7 categories

Are we tired of showmen yet? 

Watching he Greatest Showman in 2018 was a matter of reflecting on a disquieting juxtaposition: a spectacle celebrating a liberal outcome of the culture wars while a very illiberal administration governs the United States. Everyone can be a showman now. It also offer an interesting juxtaposition of our leading men: hucksters both, but with different …

Posted 18 days ago by

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Is Curiosity Fleeting, or Worse? 

An interesting combination. From an evolutionary perspective, there is a clear reason why animals would seek out information: it can be vital to their survival and reproduction... Another possibility is that evolutionary pressures have made information intrinsically rewarding. - From HuffPost For educators with an interest in enhancing the truthiness of society, the present is a good …

Posted a month ago by

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Evil Genius: What Satan Tells Us About Leadership 

A menacing portrayal of Satan. Satan is one example of a personification of evil found in many cultures. He's a devil, and in the case of Abrahamic religions, a fallen angel. Once good, Satan became a particularly crafty and ingenious devil working against God, and luring humans to sin. As a being who seduces us, he's an example of an evil genius. Humans …

Posted 2 months ago by

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Using Words Against Us 

A powerful word. On Monday, POTUS followed a familiar pattern. Upon his apparent exoneration of accusations of treason, he accused his accusers of "treasonous" actions. President Trump went on the offensive on Monday a day after the special counsel investigation reported no conspiracy with Russia, suggesting that critics who pursued such suspicions were “treasonous,” guilty …

Posted 2 months ago by

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A Quantified Selfie (2018 in Review) 

There are carbon footprints, ecological footprints, and other ways to measure our personal impact on the environment. Then there's the evidence that Americans are materialistic and consumption-oriented. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my family's consumption by disclosing some of our 2018 consumption and economy-related activities. (Some facts and fact-areas are added because wanted to include major service providers …

Posted 4 months ago by

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A Foundation of Lies 

Disgust with criminals and their crimes is still possible, even in the case of three-star generals: The judge was not upset only about Mr. Flynn’s sneaky prevarication. He said he felt “disgust” at Mr. Flynn’s offenses, that a retired three-star general would lie to the F.B.I. “while on the …

Posted 6 months ago by

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Photos of Consumption 

Photograph: Pablo Lopez Luz Overpopulation, overconsumption – in pictures is a really interesting photo essay in The Guardian.

Posted 8 months ago by

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Living Versus Imagining 

What if one of the make-or-break achievements in life is learning how to grapple with the following challenge: Live in the present, but imagine in the future. What if that is much easier said than done? What does it take to really imagine in the future? How does one really assess the "present"? What if the desire …

Posted 12 months ago by

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Collaborative Action 

By Xavier Vergés As a optimistic skeptic of "collaborative design processes," I wonder if should instead approach such collaborations as "collaborative action" processes. What specifics would that change invoke? How could we re-tune our expectations for outcomes by shifting away from "design" as an outcome?

Posted 13 months ago by

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Meritocracy is a Joke 

The term “meritocracy” was coined by sociologist Michael Young in his 1958 satire, The Rise of Meritocracy. Pro-tip: he was satirizing meritocracy, and was not happy that his work led to the popularization of the idea as a positive political philosophy. (I’ve recently run across this history in Edward Luce’s book, The Retreat of Western …

Posted 16 months ago by

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Strage Prize 2017 with Nathan Holbert 

Awesome!


Reposted from Learning at the Library. Written by Brian Hughes.

The Strage Junior Faculty Prize committee honors Nathan Holbert as the 2017 Strage Prize recipient. Dr. Hobert is the Assistant Professor of Communication, Media and Learning Technologies Design in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 2014, shortly after arriving at TC, Holbert founded The …
Posted 18 months ago by

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Progress and Imagination 

Talk of racism in the U.S. has grown tremendously this year. I feel a key underlying issue of racism itself is a lack of imagination, or effort to use one's imagination in such a context. "Colin Kaepernick (7) and Eric Reid (35) Take a Knee"   Why are some people racist? Do they feel superior to others? …

Posted 20 months ago by

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On Moral Leadership 

NYTCREDIT: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times On this day, hundreds of thousands of people are marching together throughout the world to protest Donald Trump's inauguration yesterday. I write in sympathy with these marchers, with the hope of creating more understanding between the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump, and the 66 million who did not. (Yeah, it's …

Posted 29 months ago by

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Skeptically Optimistic 

The hat. The slogan is deeply judgmental yet optimistic: "Make America Great Again." Until now, a week away from the inauguration, I've mostly turned a blind eye to it. But there it is, now firmly lodged in our collective imagination. There is some truth in it. K-12 education education in America isn't "great." But it never …

Posted 29 months ago by

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Techitecture, The Emergence of 

My involvement in Teacher College's Learning Theater project makes me appreciate how fast-evolving audio/video technologies (or better: display/capture/collaboration technologies) challenge traditional architecture. Our project feels like "techitecture"—a combination of technology and architectural design and development. (And I'm curious that, having imagined this fanciful term, I have not found it used before in this way.) The fit and function of …

Posted 52 months ago by

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A Democratic Agency  ☆

For me, the story about EdLab—its purpose, vision, and strategy—boils down to the goal of democracy. This post is a reflection on today's seminar by Gary Natriello, but I think it may also resonate with anyone who's a part of a similar organization. Gary articulated a vision of the future of the education sector that …

Posted 89 months ago by

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Strage Prize 2011: Christopher Emdin 

Gerat video by the EdLab Team about a great teacher and scholar. I am proud to say I was a (small) part of this!


Reposted from Learning at the Library. Written by Brian Hughes.

This video features the work of Christopher Emdin and his new book, Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation. The book, "is rooted in his experiences as student, teacher, administrator, and researcher in urban schools and the deep relationship between hip-hop culture and science that he discovered at every stage of his academic and professional …
Posted 94 months ago by

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Programming as a New Literacy 

I've just read Douglas Rushkoff's shortbook Program or Be Programmed, wherein he shares "Ten Commands for a Digital Age." Though his portrayal of various "biases" of digital technology (e.g., timelessness, abstraction, depersonalization) is polemical, he succinctly describes major challenges of new technologies in 144 pages. His main point is to describe a new literacy – …

Posted 103 months ago by

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Selling Magic, Not Technology 

"Magical" seems to be the best way to describe technology products in 2010. Behold Apple's iPad: And now Google, upon launching Instant Search, claims that their search tool "should feel like magic" (0:16). Should technology feel like magic? According to the Oxford American Dictionary, magic is "the power of apparently influencing the course of events …

Posted 106 months ago by

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Taking responsibility for the impact of software 

Here's Steve Jobs, from a recent email thread with Gawker's Ryan Tate: Do you create anything, or just criticize others (sic) work and belittle their motivations? This last missive from Job's is a nice rejoinder from a back-and-forth with Tate about Apple's iPad platform (and related technologies). And if you don't look too closely, you …

Posted 110 months ago by

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