I am very pleased to announce that next year I will be attending The Hartford Art School to study graphic design and the visual arts. The school is a small community of creative indivudals within the atmosphere of a larger unviersity.

The design department emphasizes practice, theory, methodology, and history, which are the foundations of the discipline. Students learn that the visual products of design are a conscious integration of the human factor with technology and aesthetics. The faculty encourages students to become designers who function as interpreters of human communication in a social context. This requires not only specific vocational tasks but also critical thinking and intellectual flexibility. Toward this goal, the program is intended to provide a broad educational background within a professional context.

I have spoken with many of the professors and students as well as the head of design and alumni who are practicing in the design industry. Through what they had to say, I was impressed with the strength and values of the program and all that it had to offer.

Looking forward to sharing my design education experince with you in the years to come. Thanks to everyone for all of your support.

When it comes to design and creativity, I am self educated individual. This is done by my own motivation and interest. I consider it investing in my own future by taking value in learning new things. It has been achieved through books, blogs, and my own experimentation. When moving on with my education I look forward to being able to concentrate on graphic design and at the same time become educated in other areas. As I progress forward in my life I wish to learn something new all the time, and it doesn’t have to be about design, it can be anything. I believe that by combining creativity with knowledge you can achieve anything.

I have just visited Maine College of Art (MECA) in Portland, ME on Friday. We arrived about an hour early, checked into admissions and then headed out to explore the city. I liked what I saw, in that Portland wasn’t a rural setting with nothing happening and it wasn’t a huge city that is overwhelming like some can be. From what I saw and heard it has a strong community of artists, multiple times when walking on the streets I saw people carrying cameras, sketchbooks, and canvases. Even better is that there are many local galleries in the area along with an art museum. We, being my dad and I, headed to Baxter’s Basement, the place in which we were to meet Margo Halverson, a graphic design professor at the college. I had connected with Margo online and asked if we could meet when I come up for my college visit and tour.

She arrived, we introduced ourselves and headed back for her personal studio and office space. This space can tell you a lot about who she is. Many posters on the wall and a large bookshelf with design, art, and senior thesis books. Before we get into what we talked about, a little information on Margo. She has a BFA and MFA from Arizona State University, she was a graphic designer at Alice Design Communications, and is the director of Design Inquiry.

From talking with Margo, it is easy to tell that the her and the rest of the faculty are dedicated. The faculty from other departments take part in critiques of your work so that you may have other perspectives other than those who teach you design. There is a two year foundation in which students explore the basics of art. In the first year you are able to start taking electives in your area of interest, which might or might no become your major. MECA is for sure a “process” school with an emphasis on the importance of content within design, along with form. A good amount of writing in relation to your work and the history of design also takes place in the flexible curriculum. As part of your senior thesis project, each student produces hand bound books that illustrate and describe the process in which they went through to complete their work. Margo showed us some of these book and they were beautiful and well designed. She was able to offer us great insight on the program, and for that I am grateful.

After speaking with her we headed out on a tour of the school. MECA doesn’t necessarily have a dedicated campus but from what I saw the city becomes the campus with short walks in-between the several main buildings. The main building used to be an old department store in town in which they have turned into studio space. And let me tell you, this building makes for some great space to create art. With high ceilings, big windows everywhere, an open floor plan, and five stories, this space is ideal and beautiful. Overall, I was impressed with the school and was glad to be able to get an in-depth view of the program I have interest in and a general tour of the whole school.

Thanks to Margo for talking to us and it is Margo’s birthday today, so Happy Birthday!
See more photos on Flickr.

That is right, school starts on this coming Tuesday.
Here are some signs that school is just around the corner.

1. Summer reading books are in the process of being read.
2. Textbooks were recently ordered.
3. Had training meeting for the group of students that give tours of the school.
4. Got some new shirts and clothes for school.
5. Lost my brown belt, bought a new one.
6. Had freshmen orientation night, seniors went to meet them and answer questions. Freshman friend requests on Facebook.
7. Went to see movies with a bunch of people, people asked each other…how “was” your summer? (in the past tense)
8. Had a last night in town party for someone going to college.
9. Getting stuff ready for 3 day trip to the beach after first day of school, it is when we bond and plan our last year. Frisbee too.
10. Still deciding whether to wear plaid shorts on the first day of school or not to cause half of the school might be wearing plaid.

Here is what to expect this coming year on the blog.

1. A continuation of the kind of content that is already here.
2. Some more essays due to two English classes and having to write essays for colleges.
3. More work from my art and design portfolio as I will be creating a big amount of work this fall.
4. Maybe some more posts that link to other website and projects, like this one.
5. A little bit of documentation of the college process.
6. And a couple big announcements in the coming month.

Thanks for reading and be sure to stick around this year.
Feel free to email me with suggestions or just to say hello.
And you can subscribe here.
Have a nice day.

At my school we have a simple Lit Mag (Literature Magazine) that is published at the end of the year. It is around 60 pages and the size is about 5″x8″. This past year there was some trouble getting people to submit work. This is a little bit weird because every student writes tons of pieces for their english classes. I thought I would take a go at rethinking the Lit Mag and share with you what I came up.

This has been inspired by Christian Long’s call for ideas as he returns to the classroom as an English teacher that has been put in charge of the Lit Mag. Along with a friend of mine who will be taking over the Lit Mag next year.

I believe that it is still important to publish the traditional Lit Mag as a paper booklet at the end of the year. Why? Because reading something on paper is awesome and has a certain feeling about it. Plus, when a student sees there work printed instead of on the screen it is completely different.

A monthly Lit Mag that could be published online would make sense. Here people from anywhere in the world could leave comments and suggestions, never mind fellow classmates and the school’s english teachers. I think that students would love to receive comments on their work from people they don’t know, this would mix it up for them. This monthly Lit Mag could also be made available as a 8.5 x 11 PDF file that people could download and print off.

To add even more value to the whole concept of putting a Lit Mag online, why not create and develop a network of Lit Mags that are published online. This would be much like a blogging network that has blogs that focus on specific topics. This would result in bringing people who care about literature together and would give people that aren’t so much into literature a great starting point.

It is vital to get students involved and participating. They need to care about it. The students who like to write will most likely participate, but what about the people that don’t like to write. Just because they don’t like to write doesn’t mean that their writing is bad and unworthy of being in the Lit Mag. It would be a good idea to build participation of the Lit Mag into the curriculum by requiring that students submit work to it. They are writing pieces for English class anyways, right?

In order to get students, teachers, parents, and the world interested in the Lit Mag it is important to provide more than just prose or poetry pieces. I propose adding a “culture” aspect to the Lit Mag and here’s how. Collect writing pieces from History, Art, and other classes. Have teachers that don’t teach English submit writing pieces about anything they want. This way if a student really loves science and their science teacher puts something in the Lit Mag, they could get interested in English and Literature as well. It is also important to have students explore topics outside of school such as the art, business, political, and entertainment worlds. (the list could go on an on)

Also, invite and encourage people to comment and offer their own thoughts on pieces that are in the Lit Mag. Have an Opinion section where students can express themselves on certain issues. Then ask a question at the end and have people respond online by leaving comments.

That’s all I have for now. If I think of anything else I will update it here. Anything else that you can think of?

While we are on the topic of writing I thought I would bring up a create site that has created a participatory community of writers called Urbis. Solution Watch gave a great review " onclick="javascript:urchinTracker('/outbound/www.solutionwatch.com/535/urbis-judging-the-books-without-covers/_br_/');">here.

Since, I do do so much writing for school, I have been thinking of putting up a bunch of stuff online either here or on my personal site. What do you think?

When I came up with this idea, which is the title of the post, I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. I came up with it while I was shooting some hoops and started thinking about how the education system could become sustainable, when I realized I didn’t really know the true definition of the word. I looked it up and this is what I found.

“Capable of being sustained.”

So much for not using the word in the definition which I wasn’t allowed to do throughout my entire education. What is basically means is to be capable of continuing on at a certain level or degree. At this point I realized while this could be applied to the education system it could also be applied to what the education system could produce: sustainable individuals. People that could continue their lives after their education with the skills and values that they were taught, and thus living a sustainable life.

The next logical step was to view the Wikipedia entry on Sustainability where I found the section entitled “Development Sustainability”. This section is similar to what I believe education should be like. (Sections below in italics are from the actual wikipedia entry)

A definition of development sustainability is “the continuation of benefits after major assistance from the donor has been completed”

Major assistance from the donor is what your education and parents provide you with.

Ensuring that development projects are sustainable can reduce the likelihood of them collapsing after they have just finished; it also reduces the financial cost of development projects and the subsequent social problems, such as dependence of the stakeholders on external donors and their resources.

By ensuring sustainability of the students (projects) we reduce the likelihood of them relying on their parents (stakeholders on external donors and their resources)

There are ten key factors that influence development sustainability.
1. Participation and ownership. Get the stakeholders (men and women) to genuinely participate in design and implementation. Build on their initiatives and demands. Get them to monitor the project and periodically evaluate it for results.

Get the students and the parents to participate in their education. Allow them to make more decisions and customize their education.

2. Capacity building and training. Training stakeholders to take over should begin from the start of any project and continue throughout. The right approach should both motivate and transfer skills to people.

Give students and parents more control over their education. Train them to take over their lives after their formal education is over.

3. Government policies. Development projects should be aligned with local government policies.

Follow the rules and abide to the government regulations for education.

4. Financial. In some countries and sectors, financial sustainability is difficult in the medium term. Training in local fundraising is a possibility, as is identifying links with the private sector, charging for use, and encouraging policy reforms.

Get the people more involved. Don’t just depend on the government (local and national) to provide funding. Develop new ways of fundraising online.

5. Management and organisation. Activities that integrate with or add to local structures may have better prospects for sustainability than those which establish new or parallel structures.

Get the students involved with their local community. Teach them the responsibility they have to where they live.

6. Social, gender and culture. The introduction of new ideas, technologies and skills requires an understanding of local decision-making systems, gender divisions and cultural preferences.

When trying new ways of educating, first educate the parents on your new ways and get them involved.

7. Technology. All outside equipment must be selected with careful consideration given to the local finance available for maintenance and replacement. Cultural acceptability and the local capacity to maintain equipment and buy spare parts are vital.

Don’t go crazy with technology because it will cost you later. Get access to the internet with fast and cheap computers. Make it so your technology can scale when new products come out.

8. Environment. Poor rural communities that depend on natural resources should be involved in identifying and managing environmental risks. Urban communities should identify and manage waste disposal and pollution risks.

Make the actual building itself environmentally friendly. Get the students involved and education them on the environment.

9. External political and economic factors. In a weak economy, projects should not be too complicated, ambitious or expensive.

Use your constraints to your advantage. When setting up an education system in a under developed location keep it simple and then grow.

10. Realistic duration. A short project may be inadequate for solving entrenched problems in a sustainable way, particularly when behavioural and institutional changes are intended. A long project, may on the other hand, promote dependence.

Plan projects with long time spans that allow students to develop their skills and mature. If a student is struggling in a subject, just don’t help them once on the current problem at hand. Set up a time to help them each week as new problems arise.

In conclusion, develop your education system so that it is sustainable and so that it may produce sustainable individuals.

Time Magazine just published an article about No Child Left Behind and what can be done to fix it. It said that we need on national test to be able to rank everybody with, get better teachers for bad schools, encourage schools to report more than they are required, and to leave school improvement to the local people who care the most.

I feel that we need NCLB but we also need something for the students who aren’t left behind. We need to help students who are talented and gifted to continue exploring their worlds and being educated in new and innovative ways. How should we do this?

Also, watch Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Secretary of Education defend the NCLB act.

Today I just went through all of my college mailings and brochures. A very tedious task. I have been busy working on my portfolio and have made three posters recently.

Christian Long over at Think:Lab is going to be talking to Daniel Pink, author of “A Whole New Mind” about School Design. Christian has asked his readers for question suggestions. I might be late on coming up with my questions, but lets hope note. Here is Christian’s post. So here are my questions.

What physical form and function to you see a school having in the future when today people (who aren’t students) can work from anywhere? And as this trend of being able to work from anywhere continues in the future, how should we educate today’s students on still having people skills and being able to communicate just not through the internet?

How can we design a school to be a place where people are open to the world through the internet but still learn by talking to the people around them?

How can we design high schools and colleges so that students can learn through playing and being creative. (Play, being one of the senses in your book) And seeing that today older students don’t play and create as much as younger students did.

How can the design of our future education system tell a story to the students? A story that contains facts that our just taught to us today in their raw format?

How can the design of a school balance the teaching of facts and the teaching of skills we are taught for right brain thinking?

More on these questions to come soon.

As you know I went to the Harvard Model United Nations conference and simulation recently. The whole conference was about debating and actually doing stuff to fix a problem. It was not a bunch of teachers lecturing us on how this problem could be fixed and us taking notes. We were actually doing stuff. I think this is extremely important part of education. People need not just to be talked to but they need to talk about the subject and engage in a discussion/conversation.

Today, we are taught facts, methods, and other information. We, as students, are expected to memorize this information and then apply it. If you’re lucky (private school or a good teacher), there might be a little more hands on approach. Through out our high school careers we are taught to memorize and then apply. This is preparing us for college, when what we are taught is actually important to do our jobs for the rest of our lives.

Lets clear up something. I am not saying that we shouldn’t be taught the subjects that we are taught in school. We need to be taught how to write, do math, etc. And we should be interested in learning anything we can be taught. But, my friends and I fail to see where some of these skills are going to be useful in life, if we do not necessarily become scientists, move to a foreign country, or become an engineer.

So here is what I am proposing. The way classes are taught should be split into three sections: Teaching of Information and Methods, Thinking, Discussing, and Re-working, and then Producing Content and Spreading your Knowledge to others. In more detail below.

Teaching of Information and Methods
This is what you think of when you think of school. Textbooks, sitting behind desks, taking notes, and being sent home to memorize the information, only to come back and take a test. This is necessary for the next two parts.
Thinking, Discussing, and Re-working
Talking about what you learned. Focusing on current events and news. And looking to the future. This part could have a little unconference feel to it.
Producing Content and Spreading your Knowledge to others.
This is the part that the internet enables. Creating videos, podcasts, blog posts is at the heart of this part of the class. Being able to publish books through LuLu. This allows students to spread knowledge that was learned in the first part and the new ideas that were generated in the second part.

I just read A Whole New Mind this week. It says that we are moving into a conceptual revolution that is moving away from the knowledge working and towards a creative mind. That is correct. We are talking about the knowledge worker that our education system is built to create. We need to change how classes work and how our students are taught.

As a result of this blog I will become a different type of learner. I hope my blog will allow me to have a conversation (blog comments) about my ideas and thoughts (blog posts). This type of learning is not based on facts, but rather on improving and growing ideas in a collaborative manner.

(The preceding was a response to a challenge by Christian from think:lab. He has written some amazing things about me and I would like to thank him for everything)

Coudal Partners have done and have been doing a wonderful job with their website since I started reading it about a year ago. If you are interested in design and creative work then this site is an excellent learning resource for you. But what if you are interested in Physics, US History, Algebra, Writing, or Spanish. Wait a minute. Did I just name all of the classes I am taking in school. I did.

What if there was a site out their like Coudal.com that was for science. It would take a student and show them more then their text book. They would be able to see other websites and resources about physics. They would be able to see submit links from different experts in the field every month. They would be able to participate in contest that would challenge them to think and apply their skills. They would be able to be part of a community just about physics.

I feel that this is what we really need in today’s education system. Textbooks are great but real world examples, online communities, and collaboration is the way to go.

I have started an Independent Study Project at my school. This is basically I class that I have created and is look over by a faculty member. For my project I will be creating a online video website for my school. The site will have videos, podcasts, and written news that will be generated by myself, digital video classes, and by a club that I am creating. I started using Wordpress and Youtube embedded videos and after a while decided to just use Apple’s iWeb. I already here the shrikes of horror. I know iWeb generates some of the worst code ever and doesn’t use web standards. But, it it easy to use for me and for the other people and it works well with the server that I already have. Hopefully sometime in the future, I will move to Wordpress or even Movabletype.