My thoughts about Education Humanities, Technology and Digital Culture. Interested on social media tools in educational contexts and
gamification in education.
The video illustrates literally the concept of "Hip Hop Genius". These ideas are explored more fully in the book, "Hip Hop Genius: Remixing High School Education" by Sam Seidel (hiphopgenius.org)
Education:
There is a great analogy between creativity of hip hop and the need to 'remix' education.
The message on this video is about changing education to maximize learners potential and to respect them not as 'consumers' but as 'creators'.
The new 'attitude' of educators doesn't mean change the important or some good aspects of improving skills learning.
It means to motivate learners that speak a different language, opening the door of the classroom to build new understanding platforms between school and young people's interests and ingenuity.
Students are brilliant creators if educators can reach their trust.
"The best resources teachers can take into the classroom are their own minds."
Steve Wheeler
If we have a creative and open mind, as educators, we can feel students' brilliance and genius.
The drawings were done by Mike McCarthy, a student at College Unbound,a school that exemplifies many of the values espoused in the film.
The entire video was shot in College Unbound's seminar space, where Mike has built a studio for his companyDrawn Along.
The end sequence was shot by Graham Wheeler, a recent graduate of theEast Bay Met,a high school that also embodies many of the principles of Hip Hop Genius. Graham and Mike edited the whole video as well.
The beat at the end was made by DJ Tek, who worked with me at the AS220 Broad Street Studio.
So they decided to create a mobile app for Porto their city, since it has been achieving an increase amount of several interesting spots. As Insiders, they know Porto as no one else does and they want to share their favorite Spots and what new is happening in the town, promoting a new way of knowing it.
Because Porto is more than what meets the eye, we've created the ultimate insiders guide to the city. Portable, always updated, with all the cool and alternative Spots across town.
It is an all brand new guide proposing an alternative visit to Porto. Interesting and interactive!
And do you know it's Free? Download now at any App Store Worldwide.
Available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It will soon be available for Android and iPad. Education: If you are preparing a school project to visit Porto or a school exchange project, you and your students have this interesting guide tool that will show you a different side of the city, new spaces chosed by four young people. You can prepare a complete itinerary of Porto. it will very exciting to your students.
Now available for iPad here and Android here O moveOporto é um guia mobile para a cidade do Porto, com locais interessantes eleitos por Insiders. Nós procuramos e experimentamos os melhores espaços da cidade, compilando toda a informação num guia único e gratuíto. Restaurantes, noite, bares, shopping, alojamento, eventos, entre outros.
"Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide.
Time 100 Martha Graham, 2011
Martha Graham was born May 11, 1894, in Pennsylvania, U.S. She has been an influential American dancer, teacher, and choreographer of modern dance whose ballets and other works were intended to “reveal the inner man.”
Her style, 'the Graham technique', reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide.
"The center of the stage is where I am," she once said. It still is.
The Graham techniqueis a modern dance movement style and pedagogy created by the American dancer and choreographer.Graham technique has been called the "cornerstone" of American modern dance.
Over more than 50 years she created more than 180 works, from solos to large-scale works, in most of which she herself danced. She gave modern dance new depth as a vehicle for the intense and forceful expression of primal emotions. She died April 1, 1991 in New York.
If you initially visit the Google Doodle homepage, you will be greeted by a blank screen, but after a short pause, the animation of a figure styled on Martha Graham (and her choreography) gracefully dances across the screen to spell out six letters writing the word Google in swooping movements and turns. Just beautiful!
"How do you fit seven decades of American innovation into 15 seconds? That was the challenge when Google asked us to collaborate on the Google Doodle to celebrate Martha Graham’s birthday."
Martha Graham in “Cave of the Heart,” around 1946Credit...
Chris Alexander, via Martha Graham Resources,
a division of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc.
Here the real story behind Martha Graham's Google doodle. Don't miss the story of the 5 figures styled on Martha Graham's performances.
An now the video Doodle:
Some notes:
Martha Graham the American dancer and choreographer whose name became synonymous with 'Modern' or 'Contemporary' Dance.
"Her fierce choreography sometimes amazed and sometimes horrified, but in it she embodied modern dance — arrogantly and spectacularly."
Terry Teachout, The Dancer Martha Graham, in Time, 1998
TIME magazine in 1998, named Martha Graham “Dancer of the Century,” and People magazine named her among the female “Icons of the Century.”
"As a choreographer, she was as prolific as she was complex. Graham created 181 ballets and a dance technique that has been compared to ballet in its scope and magnitude. Her approach to dance and theater revolutionized the art form and her innovative physical vocabulary has irrevocably influenced dance worldwide."
Graham choreographed more than 180 works, looking on enviously later in life at young dancers performing in her signature style, based upon contraction and release of the body.
Her legacy lives on in the techniques used by dance companies around the globe, including the Martha Graham Dance Company that has continued to develop contemporary dance since its founding in 1926, often rooting works in contemporary social contexts.
In developing her technique, Martha Graham experimented endlessly with basic human movement, beginning with the most elemental movements of contraction and release. Using these principles as the foundation for her technique, she built a vocabulary of movement that would “increase the emotional activity of the dancer’s body.”
"Martha Graham’s dancing and choreography exposed the depths of human emotion through movements that were sharp, angular, jagged, and direct. The dance world was forever altered by Martha Graham’s vision, which has been and continues to be a source of inspiration for generations of dance and theatre artists."
The New York Public Library has acquired Graham’s archive, filling a significant gap in the story of early modern dance in America.
“I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It’s permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable.”
Martha Graham
Twitter is a buzz with famous quotes from Martha Graham and her supporters over the years.
Advertisement for Graham's first BAM appearance, 1933
The following night brought about the revival of Graham’s 1940 piece Letter to the World, an exploration of the duality between the inner and outer lives of the artist, inspired by the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Its title is taken from one of Dickinson’s most well-known poems:
This is my letter to the world That never wrote to Me – The simple News that Nature told With tender Majesty –
Her Message is committed To Hands I cannot see – For love of Her – Sweet – countrymen Judge tenderly – of Me –
"In a world of extraordinary complexity, a premium is placed on one's ability to quickly process massive amounts of wildly varying types of information. Musical instruction helps young people develop the brain capacity to process a lot of information and to organize and present it."
Ted Barone
There are an enormous group of students who are gifted that can't afford early artistic education. Students attending schools in high poverty communities have less access to Arts instruction than their peers in more affluent communities.
Pressure to improve test scores in other content areas is another top barrier to Arts education.
“Appalachian Spring”/ Graham dances with Erick Hawkins
Arnold Eagle, via Martha Graham Resources,
a division of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc.
However it's proved that Arts - music, dance, theater -, are a wonderful therapy for hyperactive kids who have concentration problems.
Arts give them the concentration discipline and the pleasure to express with creativity. It's true that a lot of schools do not have even a specialist of Arts in full-time-equivalent, although Secondary schools are much more likely than elementary schools to employ specialists.
At the elementary level, Arts education is often left to regular teachers who rarely have adequate training.
It's important to inform school directors, regular teachers, parents, and students that Arts are a core subject by providing professional development for teachers and establishing assessment and accountability systems for Arts education. It would be so important to give a different meaning of Arts in school curricula and to have good Arts teachers providing professional first development for kids that could, at a different level of education, continue Arts studies at Arts Higher Schools.
Visit and invite your students to follow you by exploring the virtual exhibition. Don't forget to propose some art of dance activities.
The legend of Martha Graham long ago became fact, just as her utterly personal technique has become part of the common vocabulary of dancers everywhere.
"The center of the stage is where I am," she once said. It still is.
Terry Teachout, The Dancer Martha Graham, in Time, 1998
"I give the dancers a technique. Technique is a language that makes strain impossible."
