Tag Archives: conversationsEAST

Digital learning and education in museums? Download a copy here (.pdf)

Welcome to this informative booklet on Digital Learning and Education in Museums! This report, created by the Learning Museum Working Group of the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO), offers innovative approaches and insights on how museums can enhance their educational offerings through digital means.

Here are three themes you may wish to explore…

What are some of the key benefits of incorporating digital learning into museum education programs?

According to page 12 of this report, one of the key benefits of opening up access to digital data in museums is that it provides educational institutions with trustworthy materials for education. This not only focuses on a narrow canon but opens up wider perspectives for the students, so that both individuals and communities can form more informed, complex, and inclusive outlooks on the world.

Additionally, page 6 notes that digital learning can take place both intentionally (through formal educational projects) and unintentionally (through playful interaction with museum objects or co-curating digital collections), providing opportunities for both formal and informal learning.

How have museums successfully integrated digital learning into their exhibits and programs?

Page 84 of this report notes that increasing Open Access to museum data and Open Source solutions have allowed cultural heritage institutions to test new formats of digital learning and visitor engagement through co-creation, co-curation, and data reuse.

This has enabled museums to offer a wider range of educational opportunities to visitors, including interactive exhibits, virtual tours, and online resources. However, the report also acknowledges that many museums face challenges when implementing digital learning programs, such as a lack of technical skills or budget constraints. The report provides case studies of successful digital learning initiatives in several museums throughout Europe.

What are some of the challenges museums face when implementing digital learning, and how can they overcome them?

Some of the challenges museums face when implementing digital learning programs include a lack of technical skills in the team, a lack of technical equipment and software, poor awareness of technological advancements, or budget constraints holding back the digital transformation.

To overcome these challenges, museums can invest in training programs for their staff to improve their technical skills and knowledge. They can also seek partnerships with technology companies or other organisations to provide access to necessary equipment and software. Additionally, museums can work to increase awareness among staff and visitors about the benefits of digital learning and the potential impact it can have on education and engagement.

Finally, museums can explore alternative funding sources or seek out grants to help support their digital learning initiatives.

The report was created by the Learning Museum Working Group of the Network of European Museum Organisations (NEMO).

The report was published in January 2023.

This article was rendered by AI – it was ratified before publication by a human.

 

The king and a maiden...image
The king and a maiden…

The University of Florida is home to the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature.You can find over seven thousand titles digitised here:

https://ufdc.ufl.edu/collections/juv

The plate accompanying this article is of a king and a maiden on horseback, from an 1872 UK edition of Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen.

See more here – https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00026595/00001/images/5

Using the search box will afford you many hours of pleasure as you discover writing and illustrations from the disturbing to the lyrical and heart warming.

“… strengths and distinctions of the Baldwin Library include: alphabet books, marginalia and inscriptions, nonfiction from the 20th century, Little Golden Books, religious tracts, and illustrated editions from the Golden Age of Children’s Literature.

Scholars worldwide use the Baldwin Library for research in morality tales and religious tracts, conduct of life, gender roles, comparative editions, and toy and movable books.”

Source: The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature.

See more here…https://ufdc.ufl.edu/collections/juv

A treasure trove on-line indeed. We recommend this collection.

The architect, Lord Norman Foster, has been recently talking about his latest project, the InHub la punt in the Swiss Engadin Valley. Foster, in the video below, talks about the changing nature of buildings and how innovation can be accommodated, often in architecturally provocative ways, whilst offering communities new spatial and intellectual resources.

‘…designed as a centre for innovation, the project seeks to bring new visitors together with the local community to increase prosperity, create jobs, and revitalise local crafts and produce. Separate from the home or office, the setting is conceived as a ‘third place’ for collaboration and creativity. The 6,000-square-meter (64,583 square foot) project will comprise work and seminar spaces, sports facilities, retail outlets, a restaurant, as well as an underground car park…’

Foster is aware of the controversy some of his firm’s designs can create, but is always enthusiastic for intellectual collaboration and human engagement. He also reflects about the context of pandemics in the human experience and, importantly, the sustaining nature and enduring qualities of community.

An important, sustaining position to take, we would argue, in the current epidemiological climate.

You can see more details of the work and images of the proposed project here on the pages of designboom magazine.


This short lecture is delivered by Abdulrazak Gurnah, the 2021 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

It is a concise, masterly exposition about the birth of the writing process in the young mind, as well as how, as a mature writer, the author begins to finally see the warped mirror reflecting the reality of the landscape of colonialism, racism and inequality.

In this video essay Abdulrazak Gurnah traces the arc of anger, joy, confusion and the quest for clarity in a troubled world. His writing is, in essence, a tool chipping away at the vaunting edifice of inequality, mis-direction by elites, cruelty and injustice.

It is a long journey from Zanzibar to the University of Kent, but the journey began with a sheet of paper and a pen.

In his opening stanza, Gurnah reads us an excerpt from the writings of Lawrence, that beautifully captures the experience of the young person discovering the illustrative power of reflection…a sensation, a memory, that any putative writer, in any setting will recognise immediately.

Masterly is too slight a word for this video essay, and it will remain laden with meaning and message for all of us as 2021 comes to an end…

We commend it to our readers, as we hopefully await sunnier uplands in 2022.

Discover the life of Abdulrazak Gurnah on Wikipedia here.

 

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain have produced their own inimitable version of Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.

It is a compendium of spirit, vivacity and bravura musicianship, of course.

If you do not know of the Ukulele Orchestra, this is a great introduction.

If you have had one Zoom meeting too many during the day, or phone calls that never seem to end – this is the antidote.

Who knew the ukulele was a therapeutic tool?

Discover the UOoGB home page here…and details of their forthcoming gigs.

Enjoy! We did.

Editor’sNote: If you missed the Nirvana original see it here.


The Edinburgh International Book Festival starts today. Events are free and you can visit the very impressive festival web pages here – https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/

Edinburgh books made tangible: Florencia Viadonna, Creative Commons, Unsplash

Taking place in your web browser from the 15th to the 31st August 2020.

  • Book attendance at over 140 events – see more.
  • Browse the very comprehensive Festival Bookshop – see more.
  • What’s happening with the Baillie Gifford Children’s Programme? – see more.

Some highlights for us…

The New York Times Series

‘For the second year running, The New York Times and Edinburgh International Book Festival are collaborating to bring a timely and thought-provoking celebration of writing and ideas to readers around the world’.

Sessions include Women in Politics, live NYT book reviews, Inside the NYT Crossword and Should Capitalism Survive Climate Change? In turbulent times this festival theme will help crystallise your take on the socio-political tensions that wrack the country in 2020. See more.

Outriders Africa

Having supported ten writers to explore and re-imagine the landscape in the US in 2017, the festival this year will send ten writers on journeys across Africa.

‘Outriders will again see ten writers explore a region of the world – this time in Africa. Each pair of writers will embark on an international journey through Africa, meeting writers and communities along their way and engaging in discussions around migration, colonial legacies, inequalities and the impact of globalisation and environmental change. Each of the ten Outriders will create a new work in response to their journey which will be presented at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2021’.

You can find this important work, challenging perceptions here.

Made in Scotland

If you needed evidence of the intellectual  powerhouse that is Scotland, find it in this festival theme here.

You can find the festival full programme here.

You can explore how to book here.

You can donate and support the festival here.


Taken between 1939 and 1940, this is a really impressive historical, location referenced photo-archive of NYC – marking the point of emergence for a new world in the coming decades, but shaded with modernism even then.

Explore a city, one dot at a time…

The Works Progress Administration collaborated with the New York City Tax Department to collect photographs of every building in the five boroughs of New York City. In 2018, the NYC Municipal Archives completed the digitisation and tagging of these photos. This website places them on a map.

You can discover the aims of the Works Progress Administration on Wikipedia. Part of the The New Deal, it represented an energy and drive to resuscitate the lives of millions of job seekers in a recession.

The image catalogue is resonant of today, in many layered ways.

 


For a really contemporary photographic take on NYC, you can explore…

Hearts in Isolation: Expanding the Walls 2020

Image: Daniel Koponyas, Creative Commons, Unsplash

 

‘Organised by Studio Museum Harlem, the online photography exhibition Hearts in Isolation: Expanding the Walls 2020 features work by the fifteen teenage artists in the 2020 cohort of the Museum’s annual program, Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community

Launching July 30th, the first online edition of the annual Expanding the Walls exhibition marks the program’s twentieth anniversary.’

Source: https://www.photoconsortium.net/hearts-in-isolation-expanding-the-walls-2020-online-photographic-exhibition/

For more detail of this contemporary work:

https://studiomuseum.org/expanding-walls

 

 

 


Update: 5th Feb: Not long now! Check ticket availability here

Another fabulous series of literary treats available again this year. An imaginative, stirring and diverse programme of author and book occasions. 28th February to 31st March.

See more here…

We are looking forward to rounding out the Festival with the Golden Age of Crime Weekend, for example…Saturday 28th & 29th March, hosted by the Radisson Park Inn Palace Hotel in Southend on  Sea.

Discover more here:

Or, if crime fiction is your thing, you can even begin the calendar of events in the company of Val McDermid at the launch event: How the Dead Speak. On February 28th in the evening at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford.

Young Essex has not been forgotten either – with a full range activities for the young reader. We particularly like the Manifesto for Essex launch, where young people can give voice to their thinking about Climate Change.

Also for Young Essex is a great idea, the pop-up storytelling armchair. Springing into events across a range of different locations in Chelmsford, Basildon and Harlow.

 ‘A super comfy treat for book lovers young and old to enjoy their favourite stories out loud! Free and open to all – come along and hear a story…’

Whatever your age, check out the Festival full events list here.

Find out how to book here.


A featured article from our current archive:

Writing in The Guardian in late 2014 the author Rupert Wallis was minded to tell us that ‘…more and more not-so- young adults are reading YA fiction’ –  which he declared was no bad thing. He went on…

‘The power of YA fiction to generate an emotional resonance around death should not be underestimated in UK society, where young adults spend a lot of time immersed in the artificial realities of cyberspace and gaming’.

Source: The Guardian, 18th August 2014.

Ellen Lives On - cover image and web link
Buy this book here, with free delivery…

Lynda Haddock, in her first novel, has wonderfully underscored the sentiment with her first novel Ellen Lives On. The book features the journey, the exploration of a new life and the acquisition of a new set of values, by the teenager Ellen.

For Ellen the journey is mapped from the suicide of her mother, an emergent rally to the cause of education and her exodus to the Metropolis in search new friends, political engagement and the forming of a new identity for herself.

‘One way of tackling the difficult questions raised by death is to feel connected to one another in addressing them, to feel human together…’ writes Wallis in his article. Indeed, the sensitively written, clear narrative from Lynda Haddock stirs up the emotions and will clearly illuminate a shared experience for teenagers suffering loss.

Buy this book, with free shipping here…

The new novel was enjoyed by the Books go Walkabout team in our office. Sue Martin, writing for our new season book list opined…

”A desperately moving novel about a young girl whose life changes forever when she returns home to find that her mother has committed suicide.

Ellen, a scholarship girl at a local grammar school in the 1970’s, finds that life is uncomfortable and fraught as soon as you are no longer the ‘norm’ pupil, let alone the trauma of discovering that she is alone in the world. Alone, that is, apart from her Grandfather, who is elderly and lives a long way from Ellen.

Taken in by her aunt and uncle, Ellen finds the welcome is short lived and that she is a burden to the family, simply used as the girl in the house to do all the chores. Her uncle tells her the sooner she finishes school and starts a job the sooner she can pay for her living.

After a series of heart-wrenching problems with friends, teachers and those who were meant to be supporting her, Ellen goes on the run. She finds friendship with people in a squat, her grandfather is taken into hospital and she abandons any hope of a career with prospects.

Eventually Social Services find Ellen and her life starts to rebuild, but never back to where it was and with very little hope of the future that had been planned.

A moving and poignant story for Young Adults and a thought provoking debut novel for Lynda Haddock.”

It is also, in its way, a primer for adults, the ‘not so young’ in Wallis’s narrative, to recognise the strains and pains of a teenager going through this crisis, such is the insight afforded the reader of any age by Lynda Haddock’s writing.

Lynda Haddock’s work joins a solid tradition of novels that seek to offer reflection and a way forward in the face of death and loss. From The Fault in Our Stars by John Green to Jacqueline Wilson’s Vicky Angel – the Haddock narrative deals with death, yes, but also in the exploration of self, equality and values – all of which are significant markers for young adults as they march forward into the 21st Century.

For Wallis ‘…the true significance of death in YA is that authors are reflecting back what they see everyday; namely, that death is ominously prevalent these days, whether in fiction or a national news broadcast or the obituary columns‘.

This is certainly true of the author Lynda Haddock, whose professional life before her novel encompassed education and the specialist support of children experiencing difficulty in their lives. The storytelling resonates with it.

The experience tellingly shows in the novel Ellen Lives On, and we hope it might become a staple of your library of resources – tendering a way into loss and bereavement that will be recognised by any teenager, whatever their culture, age or background.


Editor’s Note:

We would commend Lynda Haddock’s publisher to note that the YA Book Prize for 2019 is now open for nominations.

You can discover the latest updates to the YA Book Prize here.

Publishers can find the YA Book Prize terms and conditions and how to apply details here.

We loved this book, buy a copy and explore challenging and stirring landscapes of the teenage mind.

The conversationsEAST team.

Our team also deliver international author and illustrator visits and exchanges through our Books go Walkabout project. Find out more here…

You can also discover reviews and features for younger readers on Book Monitor, our BgW review pages. See more here...

Enlightenment in the East of England

Image credit:

News Desk image by Markus Winkler, Creative Commons, Unsplash...

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