Monday, November 23, 2009
It's always about relationships
Reflecting on Daniel Incandela's excellent prentation yesterday at the National Digital Forum in Wellington, New Zealand (see Alan Maskell's earlier blog), I was struck by his continual reference to creating strong and trustworthy relationships inside his museum (Indianapolis Museum of Art) in order to achieve the impressive new media products that he has helped to create. He showed that his capacity to listen carefully to what others wanted at the museum and his capacity to deliver on these things enabled him to later move much further to produce more innovative projects, again with institutional support. It is clear that if we want to move forward with our agenda to produce excellent new media products for education audiences then we must continue to develop strong relationships both within and outside the NMA, but particularly internally.
NIEC 2009: Engaging with Community and Culture
The theme for day 1 at the National Indigenous Education Conference (NIEC) was Engaging with Community and Culture. It was a pretty full day, but here is my wrap up for day 1.
The International Keynote Address was given by Dr Lorna Williams in the morning. Many delegates are commenting on how inspirational they found Dr Williams' presentation, particularly for bringing a Canadian perspective to the conference. Dr Williams advocates the importance of Indigenous educators and elders within education systems.
The conference is so huge there are seven parallel sessions running at once. Lyn and I attended the sessional keynote from Greg Lehman who gave us all much food for thought. Lehman talked about the importance of defining and constructing Indigenous identities, particuarly for young Indigenous Australians. Lehman asked questions such as - how do we address the cultural identity of Indigenous Australian students? Lehman finished his presentation by proposing that Indigenous australian students may need to define a 'new' type of cultural identity for themselves, one that is relevant to the beginning of the 21st century.
In the afternoon I attended several presentations, but I will focus on the very inspirational presentation from Tricia Rushton. Rushton discussed the Smith Family's scholarship program called 'Learning for Life' which provides students with essential learning resources, such as backpacks, textbooks. Importantly students must continue attending school to receive their scholarship money. Currently about 4,000 Indigenous students receive a Learning for Life scholarship.
Rushton particularly stressed that the role of the Smith Family at schools was in establishing relationships, rather than purely about outcomes - between teachers, schools, communities. For example at Ramingining school, the Smith Family supported an breakfast initiative called the Breakfast with a Mentor for parents and students before school. The impact of the Breakfast with a Mentor was that students became less violent, more focussed, and arrived on time to school. Rushton argued that the Smith Family was a broker for setting up and supporting relationships.
Rushton finished with a very thought-provoking thought from a Yolongu Ramingining leader "The Smith Family walks with Yolngu until we don't need you anymore".
The International Keynote Address was given by Dr Lorna Williams in the morning. Many delegates are commenting on how inspirational they found Dr Williams' presentation, particularly for bringing a Canadian perspective to the conference. Dr Williams advocates the importance of Indigenous educators and elders within education systems.
The conference is so huge there are seven parallel sessions running at once. Lyn and I attended the sessional keynote from Greg Lehman who gave us all much food for thought. Lehman talked about the importance of defining and constructing Indigenous identities, particuarly for young Indigenous Australians. Lehman asked questions such as - how do we address the cultural identity of Indigenous Australian students? Lehman finished his presentation by proposing that Indigenous australian students may need to define a 'new' type of cultural identity for themselves, one that is relevant to the beginning of the 21st century.
In the afternoon I attended several presentations, but I will focus on the very inspirational presentation from Tricia Rushton. Rushton discussed the Smith Family's scholarship program called 'Learning for Life' which provides students with essential learning resources, such as backpacks, textbooks. Importantly students must continue attending school to receive their scholarship money. Currently about 4,000 Indigenous students receive a Learning for Life scholarship.
Rushton particularly stressed that the role of the Smith Family at schools was in establishing relationships, rather than purely about outcomes - between teachers, schools, communities. For example at Ramingining school, the Smith Family supported an breakfast initiative called the Breakfast with a Mentor for parents and students before school. The impact of the Breakfast with a Mentor was that students became less violent, more focussed, and arrived on time to school. Rushton argued that the Smith Family was a broker for setting up and supporting relationships.
Rushton finished with a very thought-provoking thought from a Yolongu Ramingining leader "The Smith Family walks with Yolngu until we don't need you anymore".
National Digital Forum 2009 - Being online now: culture, creativity and community
Looks like Mia has scored first points in our battle of the conference blogs. I'm in Windy Wellington learning about digital innovation from the Kiwis - they really seem to have got their act together over here. Lots of high level engagement and innovative products based on digitised cultural collections. I'll focus this blog post on the two keynote speakers.
Daniela Incandela, Director of New Media, Indianapolis Museum of Art, gave an inspirational and jargon free talk about technical and online innovation in his five years with the organisation. He started in their Education section with a passion for video production. His passion and dry sense of humour seem to have allowed him to build strong relationships across the organisation which have led to a variety of innovative products - the most recent being ArtBabble. It's interesting that he hasn't shied away high quality video production to create ArtBabble, almost the antithesis of Youtube in terms of quality. Yet they have still engaged directly with all new forms of social media such as Youtube, Flickr, Blogs, Twitter and so on. A recent development has been an iPhone tour which is apparently flexible and re-usable - I'd love to get my hands on that to create some tours of our galleries.
Jane Finnis from Culture 24 (formerly 24 Hour Museum), gave a history of their trials and tribulations over the last 10 years. This actually paralleled very closely with my own experiences as a journalist and editor trying to engage with web publishing as a non-technologist - ie for much of this time it was all about the content, not the technology. The most amazing thing is that she has stuck it out for so long. A good example of building relationships across communities to create diverse, interesting and re-usable content. But this model of content development, crafting and creating authorative articles and rebuilding websites every few years based on user evaluation really doesn't sound like that much fun in an age of dynamically generated content through blogs, youtube, flickr, twitter and so on.
Finally, we ducked out early to play on the Te Papa rides and missed the Living Heritage Awards where young people celebrate New Zealand's heritage by creating their own web pages about their local community. Sorry I missed it - I'll have to find out more whilst I'm here.
Over and out from Day 1.
Daniela Incandela, Director of New Media, Indianapolis Museum of Art, gave an inspirational and jargon free talk about technical and online innovation in his five years with the organisation. He started in their Education section with a passion for video production. His passion and dry sense of humour seem to have allowed him to build strong relationships across the organisation which have led to a variety of innovative products - the most recent being ArtBabble. It's interesting that he hasn't shied away high quality video production to create ArtBabble, almost the antithesis of Youtube in terms of quality. Yet they have still engaged directly with all new forms of social media such as Youtube, Flickr, Blogs, Twitter and so on. A recent development has been an iPhone tour which is apparently flexible and re-usable - I'd love to get my hands on that to create some tours of our galleries.
Jane Finnis from Culture 24 (formerly 24 Hour Museum), gave a history of their trials and tribulations over the last 10 years. This actually paralleled very closely with my own experiences as a journalist and editor trying to engage with web publishing as a non-technologist - ie for much of this time it was all about the content, not the technology. The most amazing thing is that she has stuck it out for so long. A good example of building relationships across communities to create diverse, interesting and re-usable content. But this model of content development, crafting and creating authorative articles and rebuilding websites every few years based on user evaluation really doesn't sound like that much fun in an age of dynamically generated content through blogs, youtube, flickr, twitter and so on.
Finally, we ducked out early to play on the Te Papa rides and missed the Living Heritage Awards where young people celebrate New Zealand's heritage by creating their own web pages about their local community. Sorry I missed it - I'll have to find out more whilst I'm here.
Over and out from Day 1.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
National Indigenous Education Conference 2009, Hobart
Good morning all. This week I will be live blogging from the National Indigenous Education Conference 2009 in Hobart. The conference theme for this year is 'Strength in Community: Closing the Gap'.
Lyn and myself have an exhibit at the conference to showcase the Plenty Stories series that have been written by Senior Indigenous Education Officer, Trish Albert. The books are resources that aim to give primary teachers confidence in teaching Indigenous culture and issues. So we are here to let the 623 conference delegates know about this fabulous resource.
Last night was the conference opening, which we attended in the Town Hall and were served very tasty bbq kangaroo and wallaby. Then we had a tour across the road at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
TMAG have a special exhibition on called Tayenebe which explores how Tasmanian Aboriginal women are reviving traditional fibre skills through basket-making and weaving. I was fortunate to talk to one of the artists about the baskets she makes from bull kelp (a very wide, flat seaweed), as it is similar to one displayed at the National Museum. The artist explained they only use kelp that is found on the beach, and large pieces are very difficult to find. The kelp has a texture like leather and contracts substantially when it is dried out. The exhibition will be touring to the National Museum in March next year.
Anyway more to come as the conference unfolds... Will be a very exciting week.
Lyn and myself have an exhibit at the conference to showcase the Plenty Stories series that have been written by Senior Indigenous Education Officer, Trish Albert. The books are resources that aim to give primary teachers confidence in teaching Indigenous culture and issues. So we are here to let the 623 conference delegates know about this fabulous resource.
Last night was the conference opening, which we attended in the Town Hall and were served very tasty bbq kangaroo and wallaby. Then we had a tour across the road at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
TMAG have a special exhibition on called Tayenebe which explores how Tasmanian Aboriginal women are reviving traditional fibre skills through basket-making and weaving. I was fortunate to talk to one of the artists about the baskets she makes from bull kelp (a very wide, flat seaweed), as it is similar to one displayed at the National Museum. The artist explained they only use kelp that is found on the beach, and large pieces are very difficult to find. The kelp has a texture like leather and contracts substantially when it is dried out. The exhibition will be touring to the National Museum in March next year.
Anyway more to come as the conference unfolds... Will be a very exciting week.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
From Little Things Big Things Grow: Teacher Preview
September has been a really busy month here in the Education section at the National Museum of Australia. Last night we held a teacher preview for the new exhibition, From Little Things Big Things Grow which presents the story of the fight to improve the rights of Indigenous Australians during the years 1920 to 1970.
Exhibition curator Jay Arthur spoke about some of the remarkable stories in the exhibition, as well as some of the processes behing making the exhibition.
Education staff also previewed two new Indigenous programs: a secondary program for From Little Things Big Things Grow; and a primary program on Early Contact where students explore early interaction between European colonisers and Indigenous Australians.
And Alan, or as he refers to himself as the 'minister for free stuff', spoke about some online Indigenous resources from the Museum, as wellas a list of free online resources he has compiled. Please contact Alan if you are interested in finding out more.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Education section planning day
Education Section welcomes Claudette to the team.
Here is education at work. Planning for next year. What improvements can be done in running our business.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Snapshots at Bloomsbury State School
Our very last visit was to the teachers and students at Bloomsbury State School. And boy did they put on an amazing show of all of their work!
Bloomsbury is located about one hour north of Mackay, on the way to Townsville and Cairns. The theme of the work by the students was 'My Bloomsbury' and all of their photographs, paintings, lino prints, and installations of their favourite things in and around Bloomsbury.
The exhibition was held in the Memorial Hall at Bloomsbury so that members of the community could come and view, and even purchase! some of the work on display.
And finally, here is a picture of myself and Mrs O'Keefe:
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