Blaise Agüera y Arcas

TED Talk – How computers are learning to be creative

Principal scientist at Google Blaise Agüera y Arcas spoke at the National Art Education conference yesterday in New York City. He believes that “we are on the edge of a new frontier in art and creativity – and it’s not human”. This from the TED Talk site with the recording of Blaise’s talk: Blaise works with deep neural networks for machine perception and distributed learning. In this captivating demo, he shows how neural nets trained to recognize images can be run in reverse, to generate them. The results: spectacular, hallucinatory collages (and poems!) that defy categorization. “Perception and creativity are very intimately connected,” Agüera y Arcas says. “Any creature, any being that is able to do perceptual acts is also able to create.” 

Michelangelo said: “Every block of stone has a statue inside of it and the job of the sculptor is to discover it.” Blaise thinks that what Michelangelo understood was “that we create by perceiving and that perception itself is an act of imagination and is the stuff of creativity.”

Watch Blaise Agüera y Arcas TED talk below and google him for other talks of his recorded.

 

Google

Responsibility

“I remember one of my first weeks at Google, riding home on the subway, and realizing that every single person was looking at their mobile device, and what a cultural responsibility we had to make those experiences great.” — Rob Giampietro, creative lead of Google Design

Rob has a passion for interactive design and understands the power of “interdisciplinary colleagues”. He works to find a balance in technology and the creative process. This article exemplifies and may clarify why the importance of thinking globally about learning and creativity. Rob is part of the first generation of digital natives. I found it interesting to read about how he approaches work and the work he is doing.

CLICK HERE to read the entire article written by Sarah Burford for the National Endowment for the Arts Magazine. Please consider sharing the article with your students – could be very inspirational and open up possibilities!

Google Garage

Googlers in Action

Google has created a “garage”. The garage brings different people together and provides a space to learn, create, and make. They asked the question: How can we at Google bring together hackers, makers, planners and all facets of the company (legal, designers, engineers, sales, etc.) in a design space? The space is used by a variety of Googlers and brings people together from across the company.  All kinds of tools are in the garage to encourage all the company workers to think creativity.

Accidentally, the space was crammed with people, elbow to elbow, and it made it so Googlers had to collaborate. The space makes time for people to work on ideas.

They know that the environment influences human behavior so they’ve created a space with all kinds of tools and have created the exact environment to achieve greatness.

Check out the video on Fast Company that provides more info on the Garage by clicking here http://www.fastcompany.com/3017509/work-smart/look-inside-google-garage-the-collaborative-workspace-that-thrives-on-crazy-creat

Who wouldn’t want to work at Google knowing that you’d be encouraged to collaborate?! Imagine!

ARTS Articles, Articles, Articles

The news is peppered lately with articles about the Arts

This post provides you with links to articles that I found interesting and think you will as well! Some of the articles below are on the newly released, April 2012, report: Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000 and 2009-10 from a congressionally mandated study on arts education in public K–12 schools. You might wonder why I would include all of the articles on the same topic?! It provides you with the perspectives of different writers. Of course, I urge you to go to the report itself which is linked above.

• Arts Instruction Still Widely Available, But Disparities Persist

Article written by Erik Robelen, April 2, 2012, Education Week. Thank you to colleague Paula Hutton for sharing it.

• Not Extra, But Essential: New NEA Research Report Shows Potential Benefits of Arts Education for At-Risk Youth

March 30, 2012, Art Works, National Endowment for the Arts

• Arts Instruction Remains Prevalent, For Some

ASCD Capital Connection, April 10, 2012.

• Report: Arts Engagement Linked to Academic, Civic Involvement

Written by Erik Robelen April 3, 2012, for Curriculum Matters blog, published in Education Week, April 16, 2012. Thank you to my Washington state colleague AnnRené Joseph for sharing this link.

• An Online Art Collection Grows Out of Infancy

Written by Roberta Smith, April 11, 2012, Art & Design from the New York Times. Thank you to colleague World Language Specialist Don Reutershan for sharing it.

• Software program allows for smarter music education

Article by staff and wire services reports, February 15, 2012 from eSchool News Thank you visual art teacher Lisa Marin for sharing it.

• No Obituary Needed for Arts Education, Study Reveals

Written by Erik W. Robelen, Education Week, April 16, 2012.

• Use Project Based Learning to Innovate the Music Classroom

Written by Andrew Miller, Edutopia, March 5, 2012. 

• Philadelphia Museum of Art

Featured Company from the Directory of Teacher PD Sourcebook.

• What assessments do you use to measure your students’ overall growth in your art class?

This isn’t exactly an article however, it is from National Art Education Association from Linkedin. The question was asked by an art teacher from New York and many teachers answered the question. It provides many ideas and resources that you might find useful. Thank you to Leah Olson, art teacher from Hampden Academy, for sharing this link.

• Maine Voices: Establishing educational standards raises difficult questions

The Portland Press Herald, by Mark Schwartz, April 11, 2012. Thank you to Maine Arts Assessment Leadership Team member, Bates College teacher, Bronwyn Sale for providing this link.

• Success fuels Osceola School for the Arts’ popularity

Written by Leslie Postal for the Orlando Sentinel, April 7, 2012. Thank you to colleague Mike Muir for sending me this information.

• Learning Differences and the Arts

Written by Sarah Clune, American Graduate Education Health, March 22, 2012, PBS News Hour.