Posts

This is the second post in a three-part series sharing surprising and illuminating stories that have so far arisen from the Listening Point project. Read part one: The Fallen Sign. The Lion’s Roar Twice, now, when I’ve gone to hang or replace a sign on a lamppost along a nearby trail, I have had a rather inquisitive visitor stop by. As I hang up the sign, he rides up on his little red bicycle, which is complete with training wheels and flame decals....

In the weeks immediately after its initial launch and early publicity, I tried to keep pace with the Listening Point project by rolling out a new map of listening points in Durham, creating a template for blank listening point signs and phone-based listening point registration system, and holding events for listeners who were interested in connecting with each other. The project, as it now stands, matches very closely my initial vision of a framework for inviting casual observers to engage more deeply with place through sound and to share their exeriences....

I sometimes like to joke that, as an undergraduate, I majored in listening. As a composer and language student, it really wasn’t much of a stretch. Fast forward to today, however, and I am much more likely to find myself speaking with colleagues about looking than listening. Recently, I started a new project attempting to bring some of the inquiry-based practices that I use in the art museum and classroom to a public audience through a series of what I am calling “listening points....

I just attended an interesting talk at Museums and the Web from some very smart folks from the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access. The talk, titled “Connecting Learners and Museums through Educational Metadata Initiatives,” was a great introduction to the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative and some of the ways the Smithsonian is using this framework to improve the metadata of their many thousands of online learning resources. (The paper accompanying their presentation can be found here....

I have been reading a recent (2013) report on informal education by Julian Sefton-Green, Learning at Not-School: A Review of Study, Theory, and Advocacy for Education in Non-Formal Settings. It has been a great read so far, so I thought I would jot down some passages that have stood out to me. To put things in context, some of what the author notes in his introduction is reminiscent of Nina Simon’s recent post, which I also responded to recently....