Thursday, December 11, 2008

Bibliotheque Nationale de France



This site may be viewed in French or English. The contents of the site spans photography, calligraphy, Rembrandt, Medieval Bestiary and other subjects. The visuals on this site may be used with various ages and subjects. Some of the areas of study that may benefit from this site include Writing, Social Sciences, History, and Art.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Why the Cultured Web?

I suppose I should have done this first, but better late than never..

I taught elementary school right out of college. The school was across the street from my home. I relieved teachers during their 45 minute break. It became apparent very quickly the children needed to move. That concept was not always accepted in an environment where young children were expected to sit quietly for long periods of time. I taught first grade the following year, just to think some of these children didn't know how to hold a pencil! I integrated many new techniques, sometimes "exotic" activities, such as who could create the biggest bubble with their bubble gum, yes, we discuss size, how to....get it off your face after it burst. Every child's art work was displayed, much to the dismay of the administration, "...it was messy...".

I left teaching to live in Europe, where I taught English to executives for a couple of years. Upon my return, I got a position teaching on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in a Junior High school, I taught English. Books and supplies were always lacking, the neighborhood was being incinerated (1970's) and drugs were rampant. I knew I had to bring in things to expand their worlds. I believed (and still do) I had to introduce them to the best literature, even if I had to read to them, which I did often . I wanted to get them out of the school and past their neighborhood boundary of 14th street, where most rarely ventured. The city's museums served us well, the Donnell Film Library offered relevant films such as the Miracle Worker with Ann Bancroft, MOMA, Guggenheim, Museum of Natural History just to site a few. After 10 years, I left for a better school, a new school, a new neighborhood.

IS 226 in Queens, NY was deemed a Chancellor school, the principal introduced the school as innovative, it had a longer day....yes, parents could pick their children up after work. Sadly, I lasted one year, and ultimately left the NYC Public School system. I have fond memories as a 5th grade English teacher/mentor during the year. I trained a group of children to run the mini-marathon in Central Park, running around the school for training, much to the chagrin of the Principal. We read, watched, and acted out some of the great classics, The Red Pony, The Telltale Heart, Of Mice and Men and Nosferatu (first Dracula film). My desires of what I wanted to be as teacher/mentor, and how to educate were being challenged too often.

I marketed word processors for Philips. Then worked for Data General, one of my accounts was Carnegie Hall. Training was sorely needed, "...ah, back to teaching..", what I enjoy doing most. I left DG, and started Innovative Computing, teaching the entire staff at Carnegie Hall. A perfect milieu, challenging applications to develop, intelligent people, the arts, and freedom to develop classes as needed. I stayed for 3.5 years. WordPerfect offered a certification which I achieved giving me a phenomenal foundation into the guts of computing. I then moved on to Goldman Sachs for one year. At that time the buzz of the Internet was heard, the graphical interface had evolved. I was asked by BBN - Bolt, Bernanek, Newman to find a space to demonstrate the Internet using Mosaic in NYC. In return I was able to attend a 3 day seminar. I remember being unable to sit still, I knew what was coming. NY Magazine featured Innovative Computing twice: MAC Daddy and Webbed Feat....my passion for the web grew, I see it as the library of the world.

In 1998 I attended my first Museums and Web conference and decided these website have to be introduced to the teaching and learning community as a major resource, with potential of replacing many heavy, expensive, old, boring textbooks. The Internet afforded safe, interactive, edutaining, prime source materials to anyone with connectivity and a computer. I search many resources for museum and cultural web sites with educational components. I am always seeking new sites, so if you know of any please let me know and I will enter them into the database: theculturedweb.com.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Magnum Photos



This site is owned and operated by the photographers shown on this site. Their chronicles of the world events and happenings is truly the best I have seen. Take a look, what do you think?

Thursday, November 6, 2008

BABBEL - Having Fun Learning a Foreign Language




Bravo, Brava, Bravi...a well done site to learn a language. Begin with basics, and expand your vocabulary to various timely conversations. Try it, see if it works for you. We think this is a great complement to textbook learning, what do you think? We'd like to hear what you think.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Renaissance Begins - Barack Obama


The 44th President of the United States with his beautiful, loving, and intelligent family will grace our Whitehouse. Rumor has it that as promised the girls will get their puppy, a poodle! Tell us what you think....

Friday, October 31, 2008

Film: The Duchess



Impressed with the web site, and the historical data and how it is shown on the site. Gives a real taste of the styles, politics and history of the times and people. The politics of the times with the Whigs and Tories may have some insight into the fashions, socio-politics of the times. Much to learn from the movies or to entice you know more.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Bedazzled - 5000 Years of Jewelry



The Walters Art Museum is one of few museums in the world that can provide an array of exquisite jewelry from over 5,000 years of world history and from a vast spectrum of cultures. This exhibition of more than 200 highlights from the Walters’ collection-- many of them never displayed before-- presents the evolution of techniques and materials throughout the ages, and demonstrates the importance of jewelry as an expression of creativity, and often wealth and position. A special focus will be placed on finger rings throughout history, with important examples on loan from the distinguished collection of the New York gemologist Benjamin Zucker.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Newseum - Washington D.C.



You will need the Flash player to enjoy this page of their web site. This museum claims to be the...World's Most Interactive Museum....take a look. I was amused to see they are housed in a building offering apartments.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Picasso at the Grand Palais


The Grand Palais in Paris has an exhibit of paintings by many famous artists with Picasso's interpretation...this is a slide show made available by the Herald Tribune.
"The curators have pulled out all the stops for this impressive display which reads like a who's who of art, past and present. Using the paintings of Picasso as a guide, the exhibition takes in, among others, Greco, Vélasquez, Goya, Zurbarán, Ribera, Le Nain, Dubois, Chardin, David, Ingres, Delacroix, Manet, Courbet, Lautrec, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Titian, Rembrandt and Van Gogh"

TED - Technology, Education, Design


TED offers a great array of speakers about important topics that relate to our living on this earth, inspirational talks, achievements, and talks of understanding things, people and answers to the WHYs....one of my favorites is Sir Ken Robinson - Do Schools Kill Creativity - if you are interested in Education this is a must!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Quilts, geometry, collaboration, history....


Here is a fairly new web site from the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, an affiliate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. What can we learn and teach from this collection of quilts? The collection reflect a piece of American History as noted by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, "Much of the Social History of early America has been lost to us precisely because women were expected to use needles rather than pens. Yet if textiles are in one sense an emblem of women's oppression, they have also been an almost universal medium of female expression."

Friday, September 12, 2008

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Welcome to Shaker Country!



I created this video to upload to YouTube. I decided to take photos I have and scan them then using IMovie I created this brief video. The music was from Verdant Groves...lovely.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Flickr - Creative Commons


This photo was taken in Brooklyn, New York, I wonder where in Brooklyn? - Vintage 1910

National Museum of American Indian - Smithsonian


The Smithsonian-National Museum of American Indian just sent out announcement for this site and virtual tour. Bravo, really nicely done, sparks a desire to go and see the exhibit!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Alltop


Alltop is culling information into categories, this is their description:

We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. We’ve grouped these collections — “aggregations” — into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as environment, photography, science, Muslim, celebrity gossip, military, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the headlines of the latest stories from dozens of sites and blogs.

You can think of an Alltop site as a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points—they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In other words, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation” by providing “aggregation without aggravation.”
Dan Roam, author of Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems with Pictures, used these two pictures to explain Alltop vis-à-vis Google. Second, here is a review by Sarah Perez in ReadWriteWeb.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Randy Pausch


Randy Pausch is an inspiration to many. His talk: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams may be seen on various venues, the link here takes you to YouTube source. There are several reasons I have included Randy on my blog. His dedication and creativity as an educator, inspirational speaker, husband and father, the Alice Project, encouragement for women to study computer science.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Monday, July 21, 2008

The New Museum - New York City



An 11 year old visiting from Sydney Australia and I went to see this museum recommended by a friend. The corrugated walled elevator was fun. The museum was not our favorite, the building is quite interesting, space in NYC is lovely...Decided to move on to the Whitney Museum

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

BLOGS

BLOGS - instead of "having to have" a web site a blog is a fantastic solution and a great start. Easy to set up, modify and very flexible. This morning I found a blog called the Heirloom Gardener that explained how to dry Annabelle Hydrangea blossoms, I am trying to see if drying by this method works!




Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Free Rice and Visual Thesaurus

Last nite my friends were over for dinner. I mentioned the many web sites that are so intriguing and well worth some time. I opened Free Rice without knowing my friend is a wordsmith. He really was buzzing along, and getting most of the correct answers. I must admit, cheat a bit, using the Visual Thesaurus. I love it's visual representation of words, and related synonyms and antonyms are so helpful. My preferences are set to also give me the French words. Finally I was able to get him away from the computer so we may have dinner. I must admit, I get such pleasure in introducing the gems of the web to folks he enjoy and can learn from the sites.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Searchme - Beta

Searchme.com - A new visual search tool that is currently in beta testing. Makes searching the web easier, especially for the visual learner. You see what the site looks like, similar to a book jacket. A brief description of the site is located at the bottom of the screen. Your search words are noted in the search screen with a rectangle in a primary color. More to come as I gain familiarity with this tool and using it. It currently has many sites, but as a beta it is still in development.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

PodCamps

Just learned today about the PodCamp Community Unconference. They are for new media enthusiasts interested in but not limited to blogging, podcasting, YouTube, and social networking. Here's the link: http://podcamp.pbwiki.com/ I am considering attending the one in Boston, July 19-20.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Gaming as an educational tool?

Launchball (http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/launchpad/launchball/) offers a wonderful challenge to get the ball to the goal using the tools offered to overcome the obstacles. Not for science only! This is life situations to use some basic solutions to reach a goal. Collaboration is possible. WARNING this site may be addictive ;). Try it, you'll like it. Do you have other sites with great games? Please let us know.

This game may be used to track your ability to solve the puzzle, perhaps with a chart, or spreadsheet. Groups of students may want to work on these together and then create one of their own! If they do let the Science Museum know what you have developed, share your creativity.

Monday, April 14, 2008

What is The Cultured Web?

The Cultured Web will note outstanding museums, cultural web sites and Web2.0 tools possessing an educational component. We search for the best award winning sites to be used by students, educators, and lifelong learners.

We value your input as well, so we look forward to hearing from you.