art journaling for kids

Tammy Garcia runs this great website about art journaling. If you don’t know how to get started or want to get inspired, go to Daisy Yellow. Tammy provides tons of ideas, tutorials and prompts. Here are two articles  Art Journaling for Kids|Tweens|Teens  and Art Journaling 101

i spy with my little eye

Do you think our human visual perception is pretty amazing? Think again and learn about the mighty Mantis Shrimp.

It has the most sophisticated visual system in the world, as its eyes contain 16 different types of photoreceptors (12 for color analysis, compared to humanity’s 3 cones). Mantis shrimps can thus see polarized light and 4 colors of uv light, and they may also be able to distinguish up to 100,000 colors (compared to the 10,000 seen by human beings). from swissmiss | Mantis Shrimp.

And here is another article about this far out creature: How Does the Mantis Shrimp Break Glass Without Hurting Itself? | Mental Floss.

rubber stamps and fonts by Keith Bates

Keith Bates – Rubber Stamp Mail Art. Keith Bates is a personal hero of mine. Not only is he a mail artist, but he makes beautiful fonts, including free ones, which I have been using. Check out the amazing type shop: http://www.k-type.com/

handmade tribal pictogram book

Do! A Minimalist Handmade Pictogram Book in the Style of Indian Tribal Art

This book published by Tara  Books combines so many things I am fond of such as 1) Indian tribal painting, 2) children’s books, 3) pictograms, 4) screen printing – all wrapped into one. So I just added a new category to my blog: a wish list!

Tara is an Indian publisher producing beautiful handmade books. Watch the hand production process of this book here:

via  Brain Pickings.

wonders of the modern world

I have always been interested to find out more about Otto Neurath, creator of the international picture language Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education) and one of the fathers of is called visual communication today. He was a central member of the Vienna Circle of philosophers. Almost a century ago, in the 1920s he started developing ideas about visualizing social facts, such as statistics on labour and economy in order to make complex ideas about social economics more accessible to all. Read more about Isotype and Neurath here and here.

Like so many other talented Austrians in the 1930s and 40s he had to leave the country ultimately escaping to Britain. He collaborated with designer Marie Reidemeister, who later became his wife Marie Neurath. Just as with other coupes – Paul and Ann Rand and Charles and Ray Eames come to mind – this seems to have been a very creative relationship. After Otto Neurath died in Oxford in 1945 Marie Neurath carried on with the work of the Isotype Institute. Otto Neurath started working on books for children in the 1940s, and the Isotype Institute under Marie Neurath produced many more books for children, notably several series of informational children’s books such as ‘Visual history of mankind’, ‘Wonders of the modern world’, ‘Visual science’, ‘The wonder world of nature’ and ‘They lived like this’. Marie Neurath’s work shows how Isotype, language and presentation can work together in reducing complexity in order to clearly  comunicate ideas to children, putting  ideas for visual education into practice. All materials of the Isotype Institute are now housed by Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading.

“The books show Marie Neurath’s remarkable contributions: her ability to identify unusual relationships between things and ideas, and to analyze and then synthesize complex information into bite-sized chunks. Her approach to making child-friendly visual explanations included teamwork, consultation with readers, and iteration between experts in a particular field and those making visual decisions.” Read more here. 

 

Marie Neurath and the Isotype books.

Read also Austin Kleons blog post on The Simplest Expression of an Object.

icon poet

Icon Poet – Alle Geschichten dieser Welt | Slanted – Typo Weblog und Magazin.

36 cubes to use for storytelling or as creative writing prompt. Unfortunately they are not cheap. There are similar smaller sets available from Amazon, such as three different sets of Rory’s Story Cubes with nine cubes each.

kids against clip art

Girl by maureencrosbie

language by maureencrosbie

I was so pleased when I found this collection of NOT CLIP ART illustrations posted by maureencrosbie.

“Aren’t you sick of the overuse of Clip Art? I work in schools and have always thought that children’s illustration would make a better visual contribution to posters, newsletters and council and governmental publications. Help me convert. Add your contributions. And feel free to use these for yourself copyright free . Look up “Kids against Clip Art”.

Yes, I am absolutely sick of clipart, also as it is used in hundreds of worksheets for children, used especially in Germany and Austria, and shared online by many well-meaning teachers. I understand the desire and need to create your own teaching material, but high quality illustrations are important too!

The Flickr group “Kids against Clip Art” features lots of children’s drawings, but unfortunately not many are just simple b/w drawings which can be used for photocopiable teaching resources. I have been thinking about ways of creating better clip art as educational resource for a long time, just waiting for the right time making the ideas into proper project.

isotype & literacy learning box

Sometimes I create teaching materials for primary school children. Usually they are in German, so not very interesting for this blog here. But this picture domino can be understood and used by all people who know the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The domino follows the events in the fairy tale, based on the Grimm version. The idea is, that every child has to narrate the next bit of the story, before they put the next domino piece down. Sometimes essential details have to be filled in such as the wolf devouring grandma and the little girl, but these story elements will rarely be left out anyway. So it is an exercise in sequencing and story telling. But I think it could be fun for grown ups too.

The graphics used are mostly from http://www.thenounproject.com or in the public domain. These images have been designed in the tradition of ISOTYPE and other signs, which are forming an international visual language in their own right. (Think of the signage on airports or the Olympics.) The image of Red Riding Hood is by Emma Pelling and can be found among many other educational resources at http://www.earlylearninghq.org.uk.

I am very much interested in developing Isotype-like icons for children, to be used in the context of literacy, or rather for developing multimodal literacy. I believe that abstracted and well crafted icons can be a stepping stone to alphabetic reading, as the reader has to make inferences. They also could help to communicate very efficiently to children of all languages, for example, in games or websites or other places. Of course this is happening already to some extent – children learn to read emoticons, icons and symbols in contextual menus of games. But I am sure there is more to be achieved.

The pdf is in German. The last page is meant to be a cover for a DVD storage box. I have been thinking a long time about the most practical and efficient way to store and organize learning games in the classroom. I have come to the conclusion that empty DVD covers without the DVD tray are the most simple and elegant solution. They can be stored on a bookshelf, next to books or with other DVDs, so they can be associated with both books and games. This way they can be easily retrieved and put back to where they belong. They are cheap. The boxes shut tightly, so hopefully cards and small game tokens will not be lost too quickly. The instructions can be written on the back cover and as they are protected, they will not be lost or torn. Where appropriate, a booklet or a game plan can be included (often DVD covers have little clips to hold the booklet down). For example, the story of Red Riding Hood could be provided with this game.

I am happy to borrow, steal and promote good teaching ideas and ideas for classroom organization from wherever they come from. However, I claim to be the first to use DVD covers for literacy learning boxes! Here is the printable pdf. You are free to use it. CC: BY-NC-SA

ROTKÄPPCHEN ERZÄHLDOMINO

story mapping

Another illustration of a traditional tale by Warja Lavater.

via gramatologia

little red riding hood

Le Petit Chaperon Rouge via Little red riding hood (Warja Lavater, 1965) 

This is a great take on the traditionale tale of Little Red Riding Hood  by Warja Lavater. The story has been mapped out mainly with with simple geometrical shapes, providing a new – bird’s view – perspective.

phone camera and image search

Some things I love about digital culture:

1. Phone cameras are great. I use my phone camera more for taking pictures than talking to people. I am considering an upgrade, not because I need it, but because I heard the camera is even better. This funny picture with caption sums it up.

2. Google image search. I use it for lots of different purposes. I sometimes pluck images from the Internet, but forget to note down where they came from. Google image search helps me find the source. If I am lucky, though not in this case. The image has been reposted way over 50 times, so that it would take some serious detective work to find the original. I wish Google had a function where you can list results by publication date.

love poem

by Marian Bantjes via  gramatologia: 

connecting the dots

Hey, I know, some people think Apple has turned into something of a religion, but these are good quotes. I have been using Apple products since more than 20 years – that is when a computer was more expensive than a new car and Apple Macs were produced for a tiny market. I remember the years before Steve Jobs returned to Apple, when lots of people were wondering if the company would survive at all, in a global market. Well it did. Thank you, Steve Jobs, for setting new standards in terms of marrying form and function.

Presentation by Effect Works

social graphs for literature

from Reading: Gone too Far? – theory on demand.

It may be limited what  ‘distant reading’ (understanding literature through data aggregation) can achieve. However, creating social graphs for works of literature could be an interesting exercise for students. After all, the typical character descriptions, which have to be written for homework and in student essays can be copypasted from all over the internet. A “character graph” may lead to some interesting discussions and insights. It may help to keep track of all the characters in War and Peace too.

flat pack writing

 Some Ikea hack that is. IKEA Assembly Service found via S.Oliveros.

word collage

Here are instruction by ms art for work in the classroom: making collages of words out of images on my artful nest: word collage.
.

hope

by Rebecca Puig of Sugarboo Designs.

The quote is by Emily Dickinson “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.”

teenage social media

Via Jana’s Blog post about nerds and more I found this image:

Apparently from: http://freepicturesforyou.net/4CHAN_vs_the_Internet.html

Brilliant. I might use it for a talk on digital media, which I am planning to give in a school this month.

IN, ON or OUT

This image I found on Geek Dad on Wired, I think.

Makes me wonder: in my younger years you had to be IN or you were OUT. It seems now you need to be ON in order not to be OUT. What would Lakoff/Johnson think about the use of these spatialization metaphors?

social media

There are different ways of figuring out, what goes on in the social web: drawing models, in developing categories and theories. This will keep academics in their jobs for many years to come. I like this illustration of the ten levels of intimacy in today’s communication. (cannot find the source right now, will update asap)

Via Guy’s blog I found this post by Matt Locke,  Channel 4’s Education and New Media Commissioner, on his six Social Media Spaces. Here is the list:

Secret Spaces
Behaviours: Private, intimate communication, normally with only one or two others, often using private references, slang or code
Expectations: Absolute privacy and control over the communication between users, and no unauthorised communication from third parties (eg spam)
Examples: SMS, IM

Group Spaces
Behaviours: Reinforcing the identity of a self-defined group, and your position within the group, eg ‘stroking‘ behaviour to let the group share a sense of belonging, or mild competitiveness to signal hierarchies within the group (eg who has the most friends, posts, tags, etc)
Expectations: A shared reference point for the group – eg a band, football club, school, workplace, region, etc. Rules about approving membership of the group, and icons for the group to signal their membership (badges, profiles, etc)
Examples: Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, etc

Publishing Spaces
Behaviours: Creating your own content or showcasing your talents to an audience outside of your usual social group
Expectations: The ability to control the context and presentation of your creative content. Ways to receive feedback, comments and advice from other users.
Examples: Flickr, Youtube, Revver, etc

Performing Spaces
Behaviours: Playing a defined role within a game structure. Experimenting through simulation, rehearsal and teamwork to achieve a goal. Iterative exploration or repetition of activities in order to perfect their performance
Expectations: A clear set of rules that is understood by all players. Clear rewards for success or failure. The ability to test the boundaries of the game structure, or to perform extravagantly to show off your talents
Examples: MMORPGs, Sports, Drama

Participation Spaces
Behaviours: Co-ordination of lots of small individual acts to achieve a common goal. Shared belief in the goal, and advocacy to encourage participation by others.
Expectations: Rules or structures that help co-ordinate activity towards the goal. The ability to create micro-communities within larger participation groups – eg a group of friends going on a political march together, or a workplace group created to train for a marathon
Examples: Meetup, Threadless, CambrianHouse.com, MySociety

Watching Spaces
Behaviours: Passive viewing of a linear event as part of a large group. Organising a group to attend an event, and sharing experiences afterwards
Expectations: Spectacle, entertainment, a feeling of thrill or joy. A shared sense of occasion, or of being taking out of your everyday existence for the duration of the event. Mementos or relics of the event (eg programmes, tickets, recordings, photos, etc)
Examples: Television, Cinema, Sports, Theatre, etc.

fairy tales 2.0

You can create your own Google search stories now with the Google Search Stories Video Creator made by Korean designer Ji Lee. I just made this one.