1990s Microsoft – Linux is cancer
Over its long and storied career, Microsoft has never shown any love for Linux. When Linux was gaining mainstream support in businesses in the early 2000s, Microsoft led several offenses against the nebulous operating system.In 2001, then Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated, “Linux is like a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."Microsoft has never ported its applications to Linux and even the other platform they do support – Apple’s Mac, only has Office.What happened to change their minds?
2016 Microsoft – We Love Linux
There’s one main reason for the change and that is Satya Nadella. Nadella took over for Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft in early 2014. Soon thereafter, Nadella realized that Microsoft couldn’t remain competitive if they kept all of their systems and products closed off from other platforms.Although Microsoft has offered Office on Mac since 1998, Microsoft has not really had any other significant pushes onto other platforms until recently. In the last few years, Microsoft has released applications for Android and iOS but these were ports of popular products with niche appeal (who wants to write a Word document on the screen of an iPhone?).However, March 2016 marks the date Microsoft changed everything. First up was Microsoft’s “Data Driven" event in New York where they announced they would be offering a Linux version of SQL. This was big news – especially for IT Admins. For decades Admins were taught to know that “SQL" runs on Windows and “MySQL" runs on Linux. Microsoft released another bombshell a few weeks later at their developer focused “Build" conference. Microsoft announced native support for the GNU project’s Bash and would be bringing it to Windows 10.
Saturday, 14 May 2016
Hold On To Your Seats: Is Microsoft Embracing Linux?
PHP for Startups: New Lease on Life?
With tech startups, the hassle around technology selection seems to outshine the chicken-and-egg problem. Is it the nature of the selected technology that determines implementation success, or the other way round, the hottest startups glorify the programming languages they implement? On the technology side, PHP for startups was given up for lost quite a while ago. But, while Ruby on Rails and Django advocates have been crossing swords to establish technology leadership, the PHP technology has evolved substantially in recent years. At the end of the day, PHP demonstrates incredible fitness for usage in tech startups.
I'm not going to enter the battle for technological supremacy as a PHP evangelist. I'm just saying that today, with PHP, you can do everything you thought was only possible, let's say, with RoR (and probably at lower costs). The project I was recently engaged in used the PHP framework to deliver SaaS-based a solution for online management of household devices. With a set of modulable and ready-to-use bundles, we were able to literally assemble the customer-facing, ecommerce, and admin components to draw resources to proceed with more effort-consuming integration tasks. Basically, PHP is pretty good when used for the Web part of a multi-component, multi-technology solution. You also can test certain assumptions by swiftly assembling a minimum viable product with PHP—and move to technology optimization with further iterations if proven efficient. Facebook, the most frequently cited proof to PHP's potency, got off the ground by building a product that enabled it to raise budgets for subsequent large-scale optimization of its massive PHP code base.
Speed
PHP is one of the fastest languages to code with, deploy, and execute. The philosophy behind it, if any at all, is built around quick turnaround. The language was originally designed for finding the shortest path and the slickest solution to Web problems. Moreover, community contributors have been steadily moving the technology towards modular design in recent years. The PHP frameworks offer easily configurable, modulable, and ready-to-use, out-of-the-box bundles and libraries to arrange into a ready-to-use solution. Sonata Project for the Symfony framework, for example, with its admin bundles, technical utilities, content management features, and ecommerce tools enables developers to dramatically shorten the path to the final product, all while caring for all project participants' peace of mind.
Cost Effectiveness
From a hiring perspective, project stuffing, or finding replacements for current team members is not that big a headache. PHP developers are noticeably cheaper due to comparably low entry-level salaries for a programming language that is quickly learnt and embraced. The PHP resource pool is vast, and not so susceptible to fashion trends; given the today's technology-based stereotypes, if a person persists in pursuing a PHP developer's career, chasing trends is definitely not his or her style.
The dynamic open source environments are free to download, while providing an easy-to-use workflow and focus on automation (see Vagrant as an example). Some other powerful tools and frameworks distributed for free include Composer dependency manager, the unit testing PHPUnit framework, deployment and continuous integration tools like Capifony, Phing Project, or Deployer, to name a few.
Quality
The new generation of community contributors has been struggling to beat the not-so-uncommon opinion about bad practices or insecure code that entry-level developers used to continuously indulge in. Today, by and large, such perception is an outworn sort of thing. Modern PHP development practices have regained their positions over the last few years, with numerous educational materialscoming out to offer one-stop access to best practices in solving common and confusing PHP tasks.
Libraries and community apart, certain biases concerning PHP's technical features and their attributes, such as inconsistency or unpredictability, do have a rational kernel. But, the lion's share of criticism calls up the times when PHP couldn't do proper OOP and had no classes. With the latest versions of such great frameworks asLaravel and Symfony, it's not the early 2000s anymore. A significant standardization effort was made to define basic coding standards and a set of guidelines extending on the former that all framework contributors are bound to follow. After all, PHP plays its part really well as far as startup environment quality, pace, and flexibility are concerned.
Conclusion
A strong PHP team with well-established conventions, processes, and guidelines can accomplish great things. So, just get up to assembling your strong team. There's not a lot left to do, right?
About the Author
Previously a lead PHP developer, Dmitry Nehaychik currently holds the position of Project Manager and Scrum Master at Itransition. Dmitry has extensive experience in such technological areas as PHP, ROR, Node.js, supervising projects for tech startups, and established businesses where solution quality and time-to-market are paramount. His areas of interest include snowboarding, cycling, journeys, reading, and crafting.
Finding a Car Audio Head Unit That Rocks
If you're considering upgrading your automobile's sound system, chances are your first step will be to replace the factory head unit with an aftermarket product. Provided you already have working speakers, this move can instantly improve the sound. There are several names for this component of the system, and one is "head unit," which applies to any dash-mounted interface that controls car audio.
Varieties of Head Units
Tuner - A unit that lacks built-in power amplification. Tuners require an additional amplifier to power the speakers.
Receiver - One that contains an onboard amp. A receiver can be used to power an existing set of speakers without other equipment.
Controller - An interface that has no radio function, although it may include any combination of CD, DVD, cassette, auxiliary and/or USB inputs.
Mechless - A receiver or tuner without CD, DVD, or cassette capabilities. "Mechless" refers to the absence of mechanical (moving) components, as these devices instead feature solid state construction. These pieces of gear can have auxiliary, USB, and Bluetooth® compatibility as well.
Some of these categories overlap. For example, controllers and mechless heads can exist with or without built-in amps. You'll have to read the specs of any equipment that interests you to make sure it meets your requirements.
What Do You Need?
Now that you know the basic distinctions, you've got to consider the factors that may influence your decision on what car audio equipment to install. If you just want to replace what's in the dash first, you'll need something with its own power to get sound out of your factory speakers. However, if you plan on upgrading your speakers and adding subwoofers and tweeters for an all-out overhaul of your car audio system, you will likely need an external amplifier to supply sufficient juice. In this situation, you may want to buy a receiver with preamp outputs. These outs will bypass the onboard power, causing less distortion so you can bump louder music without sacrificing sound quality. If sound quality is your focus and loudness is not important, you can save money by foregoing the amp and subs, using a unit with sufficient power and buying better quality door speakers.
Now think about getting into your car and being in the mood to blast your favorite songs. What would you reach for? Do you have a vast collection of CDs you'd like to slip in and listen to all the way through? If so, you definitely need a model with a disc player. Maybe you've ditched the hard copies, and your music is stored digitally on your smartphone or dedicated audio player. In this case, you may elect to go fully mechless and play your library through a USB connection for the best audio. If streaming services on your phone are your preferred method of music retrieval, an interface with dedicated Bluetooth is handy, or, at the very least, an auxiliary jack should be present.
With what you now know about the brain of your car audio system, you can prioritize the features most important to you and search for a product that offers them all within your budget.
When considering car audio, Victorville, CA residents visit California Sound.
Article Source: Abraham Avotina
Friday, 13 May 2016
Body Fat Percentage
They used to call it definition; today we use a different term, body fat percentage. There is an undeniable movement towards ultimate definition these days, at least around show time. After a contest, things change. Most bodybuilders gain 10 pounds after a contest. Most others gain20, 30, or even 40. Usually, this does not manifest itself as roll of fat, but as increased overall size and so-called thicker skin. It would be fair to say that you do yourself no good by gaining more than 10 pounds after a show, and if you start to get rolls of fat, you will be in trouble.
When you reduce your fat percentage to less than 7 percent, your body takes on a whole new appearance. Not only do veins show up in minute detail, but cross-striations of the muscles become apparent, so you'll look like an anatomy chart, a picture of muscles with the skin stripped away. That's a condition which has led to a good deal of controversy. With today’s champions, unlike those of yesteryear, the body fat percentage often fluctuates according to the stage of their training. It is not uncommon for a competitive bodybuilder to cut their body fat by two thirds before a contest.
Incidentally, some of the ancient Grecian statues that presumably represented the Greek ideal of male perfection have also been scrutinized with regard to their body fat. The famous Farnese Hercules is estimated to have 11.96 percent, the Apollo Belvedere, 11.76, and Myron’s Discobolus 12.06. If these statues were real men, they would probably not do well in the Olympic contest, where the top six men have averaged a body fat count of fewer than 5 percent.
Why does current fashion seem to be pushing the bodybuilding ideal towards being almost fat-free? One reason is that it enables us to see muscles that we never knew we had. Few physique champions of the distant past could show shapely, delineated serratus muscles and incredibly separate thigh muscles. Today it would be very difficult to win any contest unless all your muscles are diamond sharp. That includes the muscles of the upper thigh and lowers back, two areas from which it is difficult to eliminate all fat. Today, fat free bodies are a must. Maybe styles will once again return to the 11 percentile ideal. Who knows, for the moment, however, low fat and cross-striations are the order of the day.
So how do bodybuilders bring their fat down to a very low percentage? One could give an oversimplified answer: they eat less. True enough, but it goes deeper than that! Most successful body men eat fairly normally when they are not preparing for a contest. That is not to say they eat junk foods. A few do. Most of them don't, so it is advisable for the food you eat to be as near to its natural state as possible. Foods with natural fibre keep you leaner and fitter than dense calorie foods. Have whole-grain bread, cereals, fruit, vegetables, fish, cheese, organic and white meats, and milk. Stay away from the processed, chemically treated, artificially flavored, brilliantly coloured garbage that your local supermarket offers as food.
Weight training may be unparalleled in its potential for building up the skeletal muscles of body, but is not a particularly good fat burning activity. Aerobic exercise should be included in the program of any bodybuilder interested in staying lean. Typical exercises such as stationary bike riding, road cycling, slow jogging, swimming, and walking, burns calories through prolonged, low intensity effort. Weight training is not aerobic but anaerobic exercise, high-intensity effort which does not result in a steady need for oxygen and considerably stepped-up heart rate.
Aerobic exercise stimulates the production of enzymes that convert fat to energy. The more fat-burning enzymes you have, the better you can use up or burn excess flab. Not only does aerobic activity burn calories better than anything else, it also increases the body's capacity for burning fat. A long-distance or marathon runner is a veritable fat-burning machine. The reason this is a veritable fat-burning machine. The reason this is so is that the aerobic activity keeps the heart-pulse rate below 80 percent of your maximum. To estimate your maximum heart rate, subtract your age from 220.
Unlike weight training, which can temporarily boost your heart rate to near maximum, walking keeps your heart rate well under 80 percent of your maximum. Needless to say, aerobic exercise should be limited if you are urgently trying to gain weight, and even during regular maintenance training you should not overdo this form of exercise, since it can detract from your bodybuilding gains. Some degree of common sense has to be used so as to balance muscular development with aerobic fitness. If you are fit and well-muscled, you really have a double advantage, extra fat burring enzymes to help you stay lean, and extra muscle mass.
Article by : Daniel Green
When you reduce your fat percentage to less than 7 percent, your body takes on a whole new appearance. Not only do veins show up in minute detail, but cross-striations of the muscles become apparent, so you'll look like an anatomy chart, a picture of muscles with the skin stripped away. That's a condition which has led to a good deal of controversy. With today’s champions, unlike those of yesteryear, the body fat percentage often fluctuates according to the stage of their training. It is not uncommon for a competitive bodybuilder to cut their body fat by two thirds before a contest.
Incidentally, some of the ancient Grecian statues that presumably represented the Greek ideal of male perfection have also been scrutinized with regard to their body fat. The famous Farnese Hercules is estimated to have 11.96 percent, the Apollo Belvedere, 11.76, and Myron’s Discobolus 12.06. If these statues were real men, they would probably not do well in the Olympic contest, where the top six men have averaged a body fat count of fewer than 5 percent.
Why does current fashion seem to be pushing the bodybuilding ideal towards being almost fat-free? One reason is that it enables us to see muscles that we never knew we had. Few physique champions of the distant past could show shapely, delineated serratus muscles and incredibly separate thigh muscles. Today it would be very difficult to win any contest unless all your muscles are diamond sharp. That includes the muscles of the upper thigh and lowers back, two areas from which it is difficult to eliminate all fat. Today, fat free bodies are a must. Maybe styles will once again return to the 11 percentile ideal. Who knows, for the moment, however, low fat and cross-striations are the order of the day.
So how do bodybuilders bring their fat down to a very low percentage? One could give an oversimplified answer: they eat less. True enough, but it goes deeper than that! Most successful body men eat fairly normally when they are not preparing for a contest. That is not to say they eat junk foods. A few do. Most of them don't, so it is advisable for the food you eat to be as near to its natural state as possible. Foods with natural fibre keep you leaner and fitter than dense calorie foods. Have whole-grain bread, cereals, fruit, vegetables, fish, cheese, organic and white meats, and milk. Stay away from the processed, chemically treated, artificially flavored, brilliantly coloured garbage that your local supermarket offers as food.
Weight training may be unparalleled in its potential for building up the skeletal muscles of body, but is not a particularly good fat burning activity. Aerobic exercise should be included in the program of any bodybuilder interested in staying lean. Typical exercises such as stationary bike riding, road cycling, slow jogging, swimming, and walking, burns calories through prolonged, low intensity effort. Weight training is not aerobic but anaerobic exercise, high-intensity effort which does not result in a steady need for oxygen and considerably stepped-up heart rate.
Aerobic exercise stimulates the production of enzymes that convert fat to energy. The more fat-burning enzymes you have, the better you can use up or burn excess flab. Not only does aerobic activity burn calories better than anything else, it also increases the body's capacity for burning fat. A long-distance or marathon runner is a veritable fat-burning machine. The reason this is a veritable fat-burning machine. The reason this is so is that the aerobic activity keeps the heart-pulse rate below 80 percent of your maximum. To estimate your maximum heart rate, subtract your age from 220.
Unlike weight training, which can temporarily boost your heart rate to near maximum, walking keeps your heart rate well under 80 percent of your maximum. Needless to say, aerobic exercise should be limited if you are urgently trying to gain weight, and even during regular maintenance training you should not overdo this form of exercise, since it can detract from your bodybuilding gains. Some degree of common sense has to be used so as to balance muscular development with aerobic fitness. If you are fit and well-muscled, you really have a double advantage, extra fat burring enzymes to help you stay lean, and extra muscle mass.
Article by : Daniel Green
How To Spot A Phony Psychic
As a psychic medium who’s proud of her work, I get disgusted and angry whenever I hear about phony clairvoyants whose only aim is to hoodwink people out of their money or, worse, their sense of power. I hope you never fall prey into a spider web cast by a devious intuitive. And to make sure you don’t, here’s how to spot a psychic scam artist.
1. The scammer says you’re cursed, and only they can remove this curse. There is no such thing as a curse. No one can give you the evil eye unless you believe it. And when you believe someone has the power to make bad things happen to you, your belief system turns your fears into reality. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "No one can make you feel bad without your permission." 2. The scammer wants a ridiculous amount of money for a session. Many psychics base their rates on their notoriety. Expect to pay The Long Island Medium or John Edward several hundred dollars for a session. Don’t pay that kind of money to an unknown psychic with a neon crystal ball in the storefront window. 3.The scammer says you need more sessions with them to clear away your problem. Bogus mystics often offer a free first reading, or charge just $20 to lure you in. But then they’ll tell you you’re cursed and need to come back again – and again – at $100 a pop. 4.The scammer says you need to give them your money "to clean." Don’t laugh. I’ve heard stories from doctors and lawyers who have handed over tens of thousands of dollars because they were told their money was cursed and unclean. And once that happened, their money was gone with the wind. 5.The scammer says you must buy their "mystical trinkets." I’ve given readings and suggested to clients they might want to carry a certain stone on their person to help ground them. I’ve also suggested books for clients to read, like Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life. But there’s a world of difference between a $5 stone (I don’t carry anything for sale in my office) or a book that you can also get out of a library, and $150 candles scammers sell that, after burning, will "clear away negative energy." Believe me, you feel plenty positive after burning a $2.50 vanilla-scented votive available just about anywhere. 6.The scammer tells you that you have no power. You are the most powerful person you know. Why? Because you have the strength to say "No!" Never give your power away to anyone – especially someone masquerading as a psychic. A psychic is supposed to advise, not give you a lucky spell to fix your life or make doom-and-gloom pronouncements. People who want their problems to be magically fixed are in danger of becoming victims – because they give away their hope and power. Believe me, working to improve your life is just that – work. Lucky Charms should only be for breakfast.
Article by : Carolyn Molnar
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Why Having a Public LinkedIn Profile is So Important
Whether you’re considering new employment opportunities or not, LinkedIn is a fantastic tool to build your professional profile. Beyond the amazing job search benefits it provides, it can also put you in touch with professional colleagues that may contribute to your future success in the industry, and may attract future clients to you and your company.
Looking for a new job? Many employers and recruiters in your field may be using LinkedIn as one of their main sources of finding good candidates for the position. Having your profile listed as public allows them to find you.
Not actively looking for a new job (but you’re open to the possibility of something better coming along)? This is a great way for companies with fantastic new opportunities to find you without you having to take the effort to search for them.
Not looking? Why is that? Is your current job the best job you could ever imagine? If yes, congratulations! Are you SURE there isn’t something even more wonderful out there?
Is the idea of job searching too much work? If so, having a public LinkedIn profile is a good way to cut out the lion’s share of the work. As you create your LinkedIn profile, take care to have a complete work history and completed skills summary. If you are just passively looking for a position, LinkedIn is a professional network that will have hiring managers coming to you.
Are you not open to even the possibility of a great opportunity finding you? If so, why is that? Are you afraid of fake or unworthy companies regularly harassing you if your information is available? There are three things you should consider:
1. Many LinkedIn accounts have limited amounts of InMails that can be sent unless they pay a larger amount of money, so they will be saving those InMails for the candidates most likely able to fit their position.
2. If someone wants to connect and you have no interest, you can click reject and by clicking I don’t know this person, their LinkedIn account could be shut down when they get a number of these. Most companies will not send invitations unless they think you might respond favorably.
3. It’s easy to ignore companies you’re not interested in. If you do find them to be of interest, you can do a brief amount of internet research on the company to gain additional information.
Does your employer need you to make your personal page private because they require you to use a LinkedIn account in your job and they need your LinkedIn presence to be solely related to their company? You should still keep your personal private LinkedIn profile updated as much as possible so that the moment you’re looking for a new opportunity, you can easily make it public again with as minimal effort as possible in order to jump back into the job search.
Alternately, are you afraid your employer will find out that you’re looking for or are open to other employment opportunities? Other privacy worries? LinkedIn knows to protect their members and they have a privacy section that you can easily control the amount of information that is public.
A whole new world of fantastic job opportunities will open to you by creating a public LinkedIn profile. What’s holding you back?
Investing in a Lifetime of Success,
Angela Roberts
Looking for a new job? Many employers and recruiters in your field may be using LinkedIn as one of their main sources of finding good candidates for the position. Having your profile listed as public allows them to find you.
Not actively looking for a new job (but you’re open to the possibility of something better coming along)? This is a great way for companies with fantastic new opportunities to find you without you having to take the effort to search for them.
Not looking? Why is that? Is your current job the best job you could ever imagine? If yes, congratulations! Are you SURE there isn’t something even more wonderful out there?
Is the idea of job searching too much work? If so, having a public LinkedIn profile is a good way to cut out the lion’s share of the work. As you create your LinkedIn profile, take care to have a complete work history and completed skills summary. If you are just passively looking for a position, LinkedIn is a professional network that will have hiring managers coming to you.
Are you not open to even the possibility of a great opportunity finding you? If so, why is that? Are you afraid of fake or unworthy companies regularly harassing you if your information is available? There are three things you should consider:
1. Many LinkedIn accounts have limited amounts of InMails that can be sent unless they pay a larger amount of money, so they will be saving those InMails for the candidates most likely able to fit their position.
2. If someone wants to connect and you have no interest, you can click reject and by clicking I don’t know this person, their LinkedIn account could be shut down when they get a number of these. Most companies will not send invitations unless they think you might respond favorably.
3. It’s easy to ignore companies you’re not interested in. If you do find them to be of interest, you can do a brief amount of internet research on the company to gain additional information.
Does your employer need you to make your personal page private because they require you to use a LinkedIn account in your job and they need your LinkedIn presence to be solely related to their company? You should still keep your personal private LinkedIn profile updated as much as possible so that the moment you’re looking for a new opportunity, you can easily make it public again with as minimal effort as possible in order to jump back into the job search.
Alternately, are you afraid your employer will find out that you’re looking for or are open to other employment opportunities? Other privacy worries? LinkedIn knows to protect their members and they have a privacy section that you can easily control the amount of information that is public.
A whole new world of fantastic job opportunities will open to you by creating a public LinkedIn profile. What’s holding you back?
Investing in a Lifetime of Success,
Angela Roberts
Smithsonian American Art Museum: Presenting a Fun, Online Classroom for Prepping Student Travelers
There are many art museums across the United States with notable collections. Yet only a portion of these museums specialize in American Art. It is true that many museums collect American art, but few focus solely on it. A student tour of Washington D.C. is greatly enriched with a visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. A visit to this comprehensive museum will expose students to American Art and artists.
Class preparation for a trip like this is important. Many teachers will want to incorporate blended learning exercises to pique student interest in the class trip to D.C. Prior to a visit, teachers will want to explore the rich, in-depth classroom activities available online. Visit http://americanart.si.edu/education/activities/online/index.cfm to review them all.
Teachers will love the prepared exercises. Students will learn about American art from different perspectives. There are classroom exercises that focus on different eras in American Art, evolving identities for various ethnic groups, and fun, mystery solving exercises that help students retain what they learn.
An example of an inspiring and interesting exercise is Meet me at Midnight. This imaginary adventure involves a folk art sculpture coming to life at night and mixing up the art in the museum. Students are tasked with setting things aright.
There are a plethora of ways to learn about art. One of the ways to do this is to immerse students in the stories of artists. Many of the artists featured in American Kaleidoscope emerge from working class backgrounds or specific ethnic groups and achieve greater recognition for their works through social movements, such as Chicano Rights, Black Rights or even Women’s Rights.
Selecting Del Corazón! is a way to immerse students in the experience of the Latino artist. This classroom exercise features bi-lingual interviews of artists. Plus, the interactive zoomify feature allows students to take a closer look at work by this important group of Americans.
In Cleopatra: Lost and Found, students will learn more about the intersection of art and history. The focus in this exercise is gaining a unique understanding of historical, literary and biblical figures celebrated in the art of sculpture.
For many art students, participating in classroom activities online will be stimulating and fun –but these exercises still do not compare to a real time visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Downtown Washington D.C. Teachers will want to combine the online learning with a real visit to see the exhibitions.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum was renovated from 2000-2005. The Renwick Gallery is a centerpiece of the work completed and it is a stunning example of architecture. This was actually the first building in the U.S. specifically built to be an art museum. An important part of the gallery that is not to be missed is the Renwick Gallery. Located right across the street from the White House - this building houses American craft arts. The current exhibition is called Wonder. This exhibition of large-scale installations includes well-known contemporary American artists.
Smithsonian American Art Museum continues to be a leader in art education across the United States. Since 2006, the Museum curatorial staff has launched 14 major traveling exhibitions of more than 1,000 pieces of art from its permanent collection. The Museum’s renovations left more time for curatorial staff to take a deeper look at the collection and send parts of it on tour.
There are plenty of reasons to take student groups on a trip to Washington D.C. For more information on a Student Art Tour of Washington D.C. or a general student tour of Washington D.C. that incorporates a visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, visit http://www.educationaltravelconsultants.com.
Article by : Howard Clemens
Class preparation for a trip like this is important. Many teachers will want to incorporate blended learning exercises to pique student interest in the class trip to D.C. Prior to a visit, teachers will want to explore the rich, in-depth classroom activities available online. Visit http://americanart.si.edu/education/activities/online/index.cfm to review them all.
Teachers will love the prepared exercises. Students will learn about American art from different perspectives. There are classroom exercises that focus on different eras in American Art, evolving identities for various ethnic groups, and fun, mystery solving exercises that help students retain what they learn.
An example of an inspiring and interesting exercise is Meet me at Midnight. This imaginary adventure involves a folk art sculpture coming to life at night and mixing up the art in the museum. Students are tasked with setting things aright.
There are a plethora of ways to learn about art. One of the ways to do this is to immerse students in the stories of artists. Many of the artists featured in American Kaleidoscope emerge from working class backgrounds or specific ethnic groups and achieve greater recognition for their works through social movements, such as Chicano Rights, Black Rights or even Women’s Rights.
Selecting Del Corazón! is a way to immerse students in the experience of the Latino artist. This classroom exercise features bi-lingual interviews of artists. Plus, the interactive zoomify feature allows students to take a closer look at work by this important group of Americans.
In Cleopatra: Lost and Found, students will learn more about the intersection of art and history. The focus in this exercise is gaining a unique understanding of historical, literary and biblical figures celebrated in the art of sculpture.
For many art students, participating in classroom activities online will be stimulating and fun –but these exercises still do not compare to a real time visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Downtown Washington D.C. Teachers will want to combine the online learning with a real visit to see the exhibitions.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum was renovated from 2000-2005. The Renwick Gallery is a centerpiece of the work completed and it is a stunning example of architecture. This was actually the first building in the U.S. specifically built to be an art museum. An important part of the gallery that is not to be missed is the Renwick Gallery. Located right across the street from the White House - this building houses American craft arts. The current exhibition is called Wonder. This exhibition of large-scale installations includes well-known contemporary American artists.
Smithsonian American Art Museum continues to be a leader in art education across the United States. Since 2006, the Museum curatorial staff has launched 14 major traveling exhibitions of more than 1,000 pieces of art from its permanent collection. The Museum’s renovations left more time for curatorial staff to take a deeper look at the collection and send parts of it on tour.
There are plenty of reasons to take student groups on a trip to Washington D.C. For more information on a Student Art Tour of Washington D.C. or a general student tour of Washington D.C. that incorporates a visit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, visit http://www.educationaltravelconsultants.com.
Article by : Howard Clemens
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