Hasta La Ideas

Juliette LaMontagne has an awesome essay up on Change Observer today discussing the potential role of the cellphone in education. It’s hopeful and clear, and for those of you who think that there’s no way to make a marriage here, there’s just enough to move you to the other side. Here’s the pitch:

But advocating for cell phone use in education is about more than cost, sustainability or parity; it’s about accessing points of entry. When it comes to technology integration, you need to meet students (and teachers) where they are. When you begin with a tool they already know and love, you’re less likely to be met with the kind of resistance you might otherwise get to institutional hardware or software. For teachers, eliminate the fear factor and you’ve empowered a previously disenfranchised group of self-professed Luddites. For students, who treat the cell phone like an appendage, you’re capitalizing on an existing passion for the technology.

and the hit:

We design inquiry-based curricula that send students out into the world to investigate, collect, report, reflect and engage. In doing so, students gain a sense of themselves as producers of knowledge. They become part of a continuous learning loop of inputs and outputs mediated by teacher and student alike. With basic mobile functions like voice, text and camera coupled with web 2.0 technologies, students’ knowledge can be shared locally and globally, all the while developing critical communication and collaboration skills. Audiocasting, photoblogging, polling, surveying and language acquisition are just a few of the activities that utilize mobile devices for learning. These are context-specific opportunities for students to share with authentic and limitless audiences.

Read the whole thing here. (Or better, of course, on your mobile browser!)

(more…)

Scusate se in questi giorni il blog è rimasto un po’ fermo ma Bigchief è ufficialmente in pausa…In questo momento vi sto scrivendo dal St.Oberholz di Berlino, un cafè con free wireless 24/24 del tipo che tu vieni qui, ordini un bicchiere d’acqua e passi la giornata a navigare su comodi tavolini insieme a decine di altri tipi! Insomma un posto super-consigliato se mai vi capiterà di stare da queste parti…Dani invece è volata a NYC, tra poco sentiremo anche lei per sapere come procede questa avventura! Later 😉

Every once in a while, the “no spec” debate flares up again, and so it has once more. This time the controversy surrounds blogger Tim Ferriss, author of the best-selling book The 4-Hour Workweek. As he prepares for the launch of his next book, the writer decided to kick off a short design competition to come up with a cover for said new book. In exchange, he’d pick four winners and give each $250, with perhaps one of the covers actually making it through to publication (Ferriss warns from the start that the publisher might decide to just go with whatever they come up with in-house, in which case nothing gets used). Of course, this was all very ripe for the anti-spec crowd, who quickly jumped all over the competition, claiming it unfair and disrespectful to designers and asking if Ferriss would enjoy writing his books with the hopes of maybe, possibly getting a paltry $250 if someone deemed it worthy. All of this forced the writer to update the post and answer various comment in the huge swarm that developed, explaining himself and the contest. It’s fairly typical stuff, if you’ve seen any fight develop over spec before. However, our pal Eric Karjaluoto smells a rat about this whole brouhaha. He wonders if this is something Ferriss created as a controversy from the start, intending to get himself in the middle of an anti-spec debate for quick, cheap, and easy free publicity. Per usual, Karjaluoto forms a great essay, getting into a larger view of spec and what’s wrong about Ferriss’ contest from the start, whether it’s a stunt or not.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Designboom, in partnership with Incheon Metropolitan City, brings us the Incheon International Design Award 2009: Green Design and Daily Life. The competition (with a total of $41,000 in prize money!) asks designers to submit concepts in three categories: Green Design for Humans, City and Green Design and Green Design and Communication. In other words, products, architecture, environments, and visual communication entries will all be accepted. The judges include: Jerszy Seymour and Karim Rashid among them, so show them your best!

More information here.

Deadline: August, 25, 2009

(more…)

In a black & white Paris, little creatures with paintbrush decide to brighten up the city…

Reulf is student project from University of Paris VIII directed by Quentin Carnicelli, Charles Klipfel & Jean-François Jégo as part of our graduate program in Arts and Technologies de l’Image. Music composed by Robert le magnifique & Olivier Mellano.

this is brilliant!