MEDIA ADVISORY
Museums, libraries, and educators in Colorado are working on high tech projects that excite students and engage life-long learners. Whether it’s a Denver Art Museum Web site that cultivates children’s creativity in the visual and language arts or web tools that deliver primary sources on the World War II-era experiences of Japanese Americans in Colorado, digital technology stimulates students and opens doors to learning.
Members of the media are invited to learn about digital projects based in Colorado, and the rest of the nation, at the 2010 WebWise Conference on Libraries and Museums in the Digital World March 3–5 in Denver.
The 2010 WebWise conference is sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and co-hosted by the University of Denver, the Denver Art Museum, and BCR, a multi-state library cooperative. The theme for this year’s conference, "Imagining the Digital Future," addresses the successes and innovations of the past as well as the opportunities and challenges as museums and libraries navigate the future. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur and the Morgridge Family Foundations are providing support for this year's conference. Each year, WebWise highlights cutting-edge, grant-funded projects at WebWise. Demonstrations include:
Creativity Resource
(http://creativity.denverartmuseum.org/)
Ashley Pritchard, Denver Art Museum Communications Coordinator, apritchard@denverartmuseum.org; 720-913-0096
Creativity Resource is a new website designed just for teachers and hosted by the Denver Art Museum. It is designed to make DAM collections useful in classrooms and to help teachers teach skills for creativity in visual arts and language arts. The site features art and creative writing ideas and standards-based lesson plans for Early Childhood through Grade 12; high-quality images and art information; and resources about creativity. Development of the site was funded by a grant from the Morgridge Family Foundation.
YouTube videos that are embedded on the Creativity Resource website include:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DenverArtMuseum#g/c/BDF8229293C085FF
http://www.youtube.com/user/DenverArtMuseum#g/c/BDF8229293C085FF
http://creativity.denverartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/1977_62.mov
http://creativity.denverartmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1979_1882.mov
Enduring Communities: Japanese Americans in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah – Web tools for K-12 Educators
(http://www.janm.org/projects/ec/)
Allyson Nakamoto, Japanese American National Museum, anakamoto@janm.org
This project focuses on the World War II-era experiences of Japanese Americans in five states and actively engages teachers, scholars, community members, and educational/cultural institutions in the development of narratives that illuminate local, state, and national histories. Throughout the course of the project, the project team has engaged in spirited discussions about the power of primary sources and their accessibility to teachers and students. Educators are interested in incorporating more primary sources into their standards-based curriculum, but require assistance in locating them and incorporating them into their teaching. The demonstration will provide strategies for ways that museums and libraries can assist K-12 classroom educators in locating and incorporating a wide variety of primary source materials into their teaching. These strategies have been developed after four years of discussions and working directly with K-12 educators and museum professionals on the Enduring Communities project.
Ensuring a Picture Really Is Worth a Thousand Words (PDF; 6.02MB)
 |
|
Click on image for larger view. Michael Lucero
Untitled (Standing Figure with Spotlights), 1979 Wax crayon with incised lines on paper. 31 x 22 1/8 inches Collection of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Gift of Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, FA 2009.12.25 |
Vogel 50X50
Four paintings were donated to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, through the Vogel 50X50 project.
http://vogel5050.org/#institutions/6
John Gordy, National Gallery of Art, j-gordy@nga.gov
Herbert Vogel spent most of his working life as a postman, and Dorothy Vogel was a reference librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. What they may have lacked in material wealth was more than matched by their knowledge and passion for art, their delight in discovering new work, and their commitment to particular artists whose work moved them. The Vogels have launched a national gifts program entitled The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States. It is distributing 2,500 works from the Vogels’ collection of contemporary art throughout the nation, with fifty works going to a selected art institution in each of the fifty states. Vogel5050.org is a site which allows each of the fifty museums to upload images of the works and their own independent research, essentially bringing the collection back together. The public is presented with 2500 works that can be sorted by artist, dates, medium or keywords. Each of the institutions can create thematic exhibitions of the works.
Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave – Denver, CO
[Not demonstrated at WebWise, but an IMLS grantee and digital pioneer nonetheless]
Director, Steve Friesen, 303-526-0744, Steve.friesen@denvergov.org.
The Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum was started in 1921, four years after Buffalo Bill was buried on Lookout Mountain. Johnny Baker, a marksman with the Wild West shows and a foster son of Buffalo Bill’s, began the Museum to house mementoes from Buffalo Bill’s life and the Wild West shows. The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave has created an online photo research database so that students and members of the public can view images from the museum’s photo archives via the Internet. This project continues ongoing efforts to make the collections more accessible and usable to researchers and historians worldwide. The project is beneficial to students, authors, researchers, historians, and the media.
http://www.buffalobill.org/archives.htm
Additional resources
A complete list of WebWise demonstration projects can be viewed at
http://www.imls.gov/news/2010/020310.shtm
Information about WebWise, which is no longer accepting registrants, can be viewed at http://www.imls.gov/news/2009/120909b.shtm.
Members of the press interested in the WebWise Demonstration projects, please contact:
- IMLS Public Affairs Officer Jeannine Mjoseth (O) 202-653-4632, (C) 202/903-6621; jmjoseth@imls.gov;
- BCR Director of Digital and Preservation Services Liz Bishoff 303/751-6277 x141; lbishoff@BCR.ORG
- University of Denver Public Affairs Specialist Kristal Griffith (O) 303/871-4117, (C) 303/345-3066; Kristal.Griffith@du.edu;
- Denver Art Museum Communications Coordinator, Ashley Pritchard, 720/913-0096; apritchard@denverartmuseum.org
About the Institute of Museum and Library Services
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute's mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development. To learn more about the Institute, please visit www.imls.gov.