New! PAL Talks- distance learning for Affiliates

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Smithsonian Affiliations introduces PAL Talks (Partnering with Affiliates for Learning)!  Refresh your knowledge or learn something new about being an Affiliate and collaborating with the Smithsonian in webinars and video chats about membership, branding, artifact loans and more. 

Mobile App Clinic meeting

Our first Vidyo conference in February 2013 was a huge success!

Our successful pilot using Vidyo at the Mobile App Clinic last month showed us that Affiliates are eager to learn more about collaboration opportunities at the Smithsonian. We also thought Affiliates would like more opportunities to learn about each benefit of their affiliation in further detail.  

So we’re kicking things off with a Vidyo webinar about the Smithsonian Affiliations Membership Program. External Affairs Manager, Christina DiMeglio Lopez will lead the chat and explain why everyone should be taking advantage of “two memberships in one.”  

When: Wednesday, April 24, 3:00-4:00 p.m. (EST)
How: Vidyo video webinar

  • Participate with a web cam & mic- click here
  • View webcast only- click here (email questions during call to affiliates@si.edu)

Setup: Download and test the Vidyo software here. 
RSVP: bugbeee@si.edu

Questions? Contact Christina DiMeglio Lopez or Elizabeth Bugbee for more information about this new digital learning opportunity.

coming up in affiliateland in April 2013

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Kiki Smith, Banshee Pearls, 1991, 12 prints, lithograph with aluminum leaf additions on handmade Japanese paper. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Lichtenberg Family Foundation, © 1991 Kiki Smith/ ULAE

PUERTO RICO
Educators from the National Postal Museum lead workshops on designing educational materials for exhibitions and for different audiences at the Museo y Centro de Estudios Humanísticos in Gurabo, 4.5-6.

FLORIDA
The Naples Museum of Art opens the Multiplicity exhibition, featuring 83 works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collections (including the one to the right!) in Naples, 4.6.

MARYLAND
Rebecca Trautmann, National Museum of the American Indian curator, will serve as a juror for the upcoming Elements in Balance exhibition at Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center in Solomon, 4.8.

NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina Museum of History will be loaning objects to the Smithsonian American Art Museum/Renwick Gallery for the Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color exhibition, opening in Washington, D.C. on 4.12.

CALIFORNIA
Staff from the National Museum of Natural History will present workshops and lectures sponsored by the Riverside Metropolitan Museum as part of Smithsonian Week in Riverside, 4.23-25.

TEXAS
The City of Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department will announce their affiliation in Austin, 4.24.

kudos Affiliates! march 2013

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2013 continues to a be a successful one for our Affiliates!

perot

Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas

The new Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, Texas) announced a partnership with the Dallas Cowboys after franchise owner Jerry Jones and his wife, Gene, donated $5 million dollars to the museum. Their donation funded the Perot Museum’s atrium, the naturally lit entrance area that spans almost 14 stories high. The area will be named the Gene and Jerry Jones Dallas Cowboys Atrium.

The Long Island Museum (Stony Brook, NY) was awarded three separate grants recently from the New York State Council on the Arts totaling nearly $80,000.  The generous funds from New York State will be used toward educational folk art programs, replacement of heating equipment in the Visitors Center and general operating expenses, which include maintaining museum exhibitions and education programs throughout the year. 

The Center for Jewish History (New York, New York) was awarded a $1.5 million grant from The Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust to establish a reference services division. The grant will be used to create the Lillian Goldman Reference Services alongside the New York center’s reading room, also named for Goldman, and to facilitate research by students, teachers and other patrons.

Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, California) received a $25,000 donation from the Hyundai Motor America car company, in order to help it buy a bus so that it can bring an additional 5,000 students to the museum every year.

Repurposing the Museum: Using Digital Tools to Re-engage Young People

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On Tuesday, June 11, we’re kicking-off our 2013 Affiliations National Conference with an inspiring keynote address from Stephen Brown, President and Executive Producer at Mobile Digital Arts and General Manager of the New Learning Institute.   

Student using mobile technology in an exhibit.

Photo courtesy Smithsonian EdLab.

Conference attendees will hear Brown discuss the ways museums can be repurposed by young people with the new digital tools at their disposal. He’ll focus on museums and informal learning spaces, and the ways that they are connected to youth interests both inside and outside of school. He’ll also approach the idea of how exhibits can be jumping off points for civic engagement, interest-based learning, and the way these activities are enhances through the use of digital tools (mobile devices and apps, social networks, and media production).  

Make sure to mark your calendar to join us at the 2013 Affiliations National Conference! 

steve_brown2About Stephen Brown
Stephen Brown is President and Executive Producer at Mobile Digital Arts (MDA) and General Manager of the New Learning Institute. MDA was formed to improve young people’s access to digital arts programs and computers; to support teachers and community leaders eager to integrate digital arts within their classrooms; and to develop and share youth-based programs that make thoughtful, innovative use of the latest digital technologies. MDA uses film and video production to showcase and advocate for innovative educational practices, digital media programs, and 21st-century approaches to learning. Pearson Foundation’s New Learning Institute funds and develops engaging, personalized, project-based programming for young people and professional development for educators emphasizing the use of digital media.   

Brown produced Reborn, New Orleans Schools, a feature documentary about the school reform movement after Hurricane Katrina; A 21st Century Education, a series of twelve short films about innovation in education; and Digital Media and Learning, twelve short films profiling the work of leading researchers, educators and thinkers on the impact that digital media is having on young learners. Brown is also producing an on-going series of films with the the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) about the world’s best performing educational systems. 

Digital Media, New Learners of the 21st Century, produced by Mobile Digital Arts, aired nationally on PBS in February 2011.  

Brown is currently producing Is School Enough?, a one-hour program for PBS about the ways that young people are participating in their communities, both on- and offline.  

Formerly, Brown was a business development manager, product planner and MSN producer at Microsoft. He has been a publisher of adult educational programs at Learning Network and a producer for WOMAD, a music and dance festival founded by Peter Gabriel. 

The Smithsonian Affiliations National Conference is for current Affiliates only. If you are interested in becoming an Affiliate, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee, 202.633.5304, for more information. Click here for 2013 Conference hotel information, agenda and registration.

Young Historians, Living Histories

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Asian American LEAD students participate in the Asian Pacific American Center's (APAC) summer outreach program. Photo Credit: Sandra Vuong, APAC.

Asian American LEAD students participate in the Asian Pacific American Center’s (APAC) summer outreach program. Photo Credit: Sandra Vuong, APAC.

 

Young Historians, Living Histories is a collaborative educational program that draws on the exhibition, I Want the Wide American Earth: An Asian Pacific American Story, from the Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific American Center (APAC).

Smithsonian Affiliations and APAC have partnered in a grant collaboration and have been awarded funds from the Smithsonian Office of the Assistant Secretary for Education and Access’s Youth Access Grant program to work with nine Affiliates across the country that are positioned to engage underserved youth in select Asian Pacific American communities.

The one year multi-media educational program will provide qualifying partners with one week of professional development training. The training will prepare facilitators to implement a workshop (or series of workshops) that teaches underserved Asian Pacific American (APA) youth methods of oral history documentation, research and writing skills, along with video documentary and editing skills. The goal of the program is to encourage budding historians to explore, contextualize, and deepen their understanding of APA history and culture while learning new technologies and contributing to a dialogue in their local communities. Workshop participants will gain the skills to produce multimedia online banners to be shared across a network of websites (including the Smithsonian) around the project.

Asian American LEAD students participate in the Asian Pacific American Center's (APAC) summer outreach program. Photo Credit: Sandra Vuong, APAC.

Asian American LEAD students participate in the Asian Pacific American Center’s (APAC) summer outreach program. Photo Credit: Sandra Vuong, APAC.

Selected Affiliates will be awarded $2,500 for implementation of Young Historians, Living Histories Program.

If your organization is interested in participating in this initiative, please review the following criteria for selection:
– Serve an Asian Pacific American community
– Experience in conducting and documenting oral histories
– Maintain or have the potential to develop partnerships with local community centers, after school programs and/or middle and high schools to engage youth in the multimedia project
– Capacity to organize workshops (May – November 2013) and train participants in the production of online banners

For more information on the program, join us for a Teleconference to discuss implementing the Young Historians, Living Histories program.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

Dial In: 1-877-860-3058                               Participant Pass code: 607773

Talk to the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s (SAPAC) Gina Inocencio, the Center for Asian American Media’s (CAAM) and Smithsonian Affiliations representatives Christina DiMeglio Lopez and Caroline Mah.

affiliates in the news! February-March 2013

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Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion

Richard Parker, left, Bill Ferguson, right, reconstruct pieces made of red sandalwood to create The Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion on display at the International Museum of Art & Science. photo by Joel Martinez/jmartinez@themontor.com

International Museum of Art and Science (McAllen, Texas)
IMAS hosting traveling exhibit channeling 600-year-old Chinese pavilion 

Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, Pa.)
Heinz History Center exhibit examines ‘1968: The Year that Rocked America’ 

Riverside Metropolitan Museum (Riverside, Calif.)
RIVERSIDE: Smithsonian scientist to visit museum 

Carolinas Aviation Museum (Charlotte, N.C.)
NC museum will receive Smithsonian designation
Carolinas Aviation Museum joins forces with Smithsonian 

Smithsonian scientist Rusty Russell shows off a specimen he collected in the desert at the 2009 Citizen Science Week. During the week from Feb. 12 through 16, school groups will get the opportunity to work with Russell at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum.

Smithsonian scientist Rusty Russell shows off a specimen he collected in the desert at the 2009 Citizen Science Week. During the week from Feb. 12 through 16, school groups will get the opportunity to work with Russell at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum.

Wing Luke Museum of the Asian American Pacific Experience (Seattle, Wash.)
Wing Luke now partner with park service
Seattle’s Wing Luke museum now part of Nat’l Park Service
Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum now part of National Park Service

Naples Museum of Art (Naples, Fla.)
Hirshhorn ‘Mouse House’ now at home in Naples
Naples Museum of Art pleased to make a permanent home for ‘The Mouse House’

 Agua Caliente Cultural Museum (Palm Springs, Calif.)
Monday Newsmaker: Promoting understanding of Native American culture