Holt Think: Ed, Creativity, Tech, Administration

Phil in the Whaaat? (PITW): Creativity Fusion

We discovered this guy because we live on Phil Hansen Street. He is awesome and is a great example of a creative mind in action. Can you see using his ideas in your class?

Click on title to go to site

From the site:

The most frequent question I get asked as an artist is: How did you come up with that? While I 
somehow always stumble my way through a coherent answer, it is undeniable that creativity 
begets more creativity. I’m always doing creative activities that combine and recombine ideas to 
create something new. Like a sport, it takes practice to develop your creative muscles.

I started PITW with the belief that creativity is natural in all of us but often lost as we grow up. 
Yet it’s fundamental to unleashing our human potential throughout life. PITW aims to grow and 
expand the building blocks of creativity through exploring the creative process in art, crafts and 
photography, simply and playfully. It’s not just about doing these things for their own sake, it’s 
about breaking through mental barriers about materials and techniques.

The PITW goal is a new mindset: a different kind of awareness for rethinking categories, getting 
out of ruts, and challenging accepted norms. I call it “everyday” creativity because PITW is 
about inspiring just that: creativity that stays with you all the time, that takes you from the 
ordinary to the unknown by fusing together different processes to create unexpected outcomes.

I hope you enjoy PITW as a place to do, to express, to share, to grow, to inspire, and a chance 
to weave creativity into other areas of your life.

About Phil
Phil Hansen is a multimedia artist who works at the intersection of traditional visual art, 
pointillism, and offbeat techniques, using media that connect to the subject matter, such as 
karate chops, tricycle wheel imprints, burger grease, and worms. His work has been featured 
on the Discovery Channel, Oops TV England, Japanese TBS, Clips Mania Germany, CNN, CBS,
Good Morning America, the Rachael Ray Show, Dr. Phil, and many other media venues. As a 
commercial artist, he has worked with clients that include Grammy’s, Skype, Diesel, Arby’s, 
Merck, Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum, and dozens of other large and small companies. 
Check out his art site: philinthecircle.com

Explore

Yes, you need to be seeking out places like this. It can only exand your mind. Avoid sites that are full of one- sided arguments and petty discussions.  —-TBH

Explore is about the evolving definition, process, and promise of learning. It’s a cross-disciplinary lens on what stimulates, what enriches, and what matters—an intellectual and creative incubator for cultivating your interests, and a discovery engine for things you didn’t know you were interested in, until you are.

Explore embodies Lore’s aspiration to reshape education in the Information Age, and is edited by Maria Popova of Brain Pickings.

Cool Infographics - Blog

Yes, it is cool.

Artworks - Google Art Project

From an article in eschool news:

Imagine pulling up a stool next to the lonely diners of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” or dipping your fingers in the basin of “The Child’s Bath” by Mary Cassatt.

These familiar images, along with the sunbathers of George Seurat’s “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” and the somber figures of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” are among the 32,000 works of art that Google released in digital format April 3.

The technology giant partnered with 151 institutions worldwide on the Google Art Project, an online platform for virtually viewing artwork and museum galleries. The company selected the Art Institute of Chicago as the initiative’s North American launch site and hosted museum directors from across the country at a private April 3 event.

Participating institutions, from the White House to the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) in Bogota, Colombia, selected works from their vast collections to contribute to the Google Art Project. Of this group, 46 museums had their galleries photographed using Google Street View technology, which compiles a 360-degree panorama to create a virtual-tour experience in a high-definition format called gigapixel. Some of the works in Google’s online collection are also rendered in gigapixels.

“The gigapixel imagery of ‘La Grande Jatte’ was truly mind-boggling,” said Sam Quigley, vice president for collections management, imaging, and information technology at the Art Institute. “They took something like 702 images, little pieces of the painting, by photographic technique and stitched together a big mosaic so you’ll be able to zoom incredibly close and see the individual points of paint that the artist used to create that work. It’s really quite something. That’s a technology leadership role that really only a few corporations like Google could provide.”

Inspire Teachers

Studio 360 asked Hyperakt, a Brooklyn design studio, to create a new visual vocabulary that reflects the multi-dimensional role of teachers.

#iPhoneography

How the iPad is changing the face of Music

From the site:

Android may be catching up fast, but it was the iPad that made the tablet a must-have piece of kit for any self-respecting gadget aficionado. For the while, at least, the iPad continues to lead the charge and, though its games, web browsing and playing about on Facebook and Twitter are as popular as ever; it’s also managed to infiltrate the music industry. We’re not just talking about the fact that the tablet can house your entire iTunes music library. It’s also fast becoming a useful tool for musical types, both professional and amateur