June 2011
Grant Opportunity: 2011-2012 STEAM Grants
June 2011 - The Benedum Foundation and Grable Foundation in Pittsburgh are again offering "STEAM" (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) grants to schools in Allegheny, Washington, Greene, and Fayette counties. The purpose of the grant program is to support school districts located in Intermediate Units #1 and #3 in forging new and creative connections with one or more community organizations and/or institutions of higher education to integrate creativity, arts, and technology across academic disciplines. Proposals must be received no later than 5pm on July 15, 2011 and grants will be awarded at three levels: $5000, $7500, and $10,000. The RFP can be found here and more information here.
New Coalition Will Lead the Revision of the National Standards for Arts Education
June 2011 | National Coalition for Core Arts Standards - A newly formed partnership of organizations and states will lead the revision the 1994 National Standards for Arts Education. The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) plans to complete its work and release new, national voluntary arts education standards in fall, 2012. The standards will describe what students should know and be able to do as a result of a quality curricular arts education program.
The current National Standards for Arts Education have been adopted or adapted by forty-nine state departments of education, and have become the benchmark document by which K-12 arts learning is measured in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts. Curriculum designers, teacher training programs, funders, and federal and state policy makers have relied on the 1994 national arts standards to help guide their decision-making.
NCCAS is committed to developing a next generation of voluntary arts education standards that will build on the foundation created by the 1994 document, support the 21st-century needs of students and teachers, help ensure that all students are college and career ready, and affirm the place of arts education in a balanced core curriculum. More information can be found here.
Survey: Understanding the Intersection of Teaching, Technology, and the Arts
June 2011 | Educators are invited to complete a survey designed to better understand the intersections between teaching, technology, and the arts. Preliminary survey results will be presented at the International Society for Technology in Education Conference in Philadelphia June 28, 2011 from 1:00-3:00pm. The survey will close August 1, 2011. Camille Dempsey and Jordan Mroziak are the researchers collecting and compiling the survey data. To complete the survey, go here.
Camille Dempsey is an educational technology consultant & arts education specialist. Most recently she has served as a facilitator in the federal ArtsEducator2.0 Project and as the Technology/Visual Arts Specialist in the federal Art in Action Project. She has previously worked as an art & art education assistant professor and K-12 visual arts educator for the past fifteen years. Camille is also currently completing her doctorate in instructional technology at Duquesne University.
Jordan Mroziak is an adjunct professor of musicianship and supervisor of the music technology labs at Duquesne University. Jordan also aids music school faculty in their daily usage of technologies to enhance their current classroom pedagogies. Jordan is also currently completing his doctorate in instructional technology at Duquesne University.
Move Over Facebook, CMU's Classroom Salon Takes Social Media to the Educational Level
May 2011 | Deb Smit, Pop City - "Imagine Facebook with a learning component, a social media app that brings students together to facilitate learning. That's the idea behind Carnegie Mellon's Classroom Salon, a social media application that is engaging students in online learning communities, tapping the power of collective group intelligence.
Quietly launched last summer in beta, Classroom Salon has been piloted at several area highschools and colleges as well as in Ithaca, New York. Over 6000 users use the app, and with outstanding academic results. "Sites such as Facebook and Twitter have captured the attention of young people in a way that blogs and online discussion forums have not," says Ananda Gunawardena, an associate professor in the Computer Science Department. "Collective intelligence studies show that the average intelligence of the group is higher than if a student is on his or her own."
Classroom Salon affords students a level of privacy, he adds. In a salon, students come to trust each other and form friendships like a Facebook group." Full Article
Pittsburgh is Art Day of Giving Raises $1.8 million
May 2011 | Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council - Pittsburgh is Art. On Wednesday, May 11 the community demonstrated why by pumping more than $1.8 million into the region's art and culture organizations. More than 3,800 individual contributions were received over the 24-hour period – 12:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.
The event was an initiative of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council (GPAC) and The Heinz Endowments and utilized The Pittsburgh Foundation's PittsburghGives on-line giving platform. Public contributions at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night reached more than $1.4 million, which receive an equal share of the matching funds of $475,000 provided by The Heinz Endowments, The Pittsburgh Foundation, Hillman Foundation, Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, The Buhl Foundation, and The Grable Foundation. All 147 participating organizations received a gift.
All data is preliminary and is subject to financial and administrative reconciliations by Pittsburgh Foundation staff, which is expected to be completed by early next week.
"The May 11th campaign was a great way to help us talk about the importance of the arts and culture community, and tell the story of what the arts do for Pittsburgh. It's clear that the people of the region agree, because they put their money where their hearts are," said Mitch Swain, GPAC ceo. "We're thrilled by the response!"
Pittsburgh is Art Day of Giving replicates the Pittsburgh Foundation's successful Pittsburgh Day of Giving, which raised more than $3.3 million last year for area nonprofits. The Art Day of Giving is the first giving event to focus on a single nonprofit area. The PittsburghGives platform was built for flexibility to accomplish these special events, allowing the nonprofit community to utilize the technology. More Information
