Confessions of a live coder

This paper describes the process involved when a live coder decides to learn a new musical programming language of another paradigm. The paper introduces the problems of running comparative experiments, or user studies, within the field of live coding. It suggests that an autoethnographic account of the process can be helpful for understanding the technological conditioning of contemporary musical tools. The author is conducting a larger research project on this theme: the part presented in this paper describes the adoption of a new musical programming environment, Impromptu, and how this affects the author’s musical practice

Immigrant Integration: Educator Resource Guide

Recommends ways for district administrators, school administrators, and teachers to promote immigrant integration in schools in critical areas, including school enrollment, classroom instruction, student assessment, and family and community outreach

Opening New Doors: Hands-On Participation Brings A New Audience to the Clay Studio

This case study examines how The Clay Studio, a ceramic-arts studio, gallery and shop in Philadelphia, attracted younger audiences to its workshops and exhibits. In 2007, the studio became concerned that its audience was getting older and few newcomers were signing up for classes or making purchases. The studio then sought to engage younger professionals ages 25 to 45. Audience research helped identify elements of activities that could attract younger professionals, including flexible schedules, shorter courses and the ability to socialize. The studio therefore added new experiences such as "Date Night," a Friday evening event where novices could experiment with clay in an informal environment. It also redesigned its website and print materials to emphasize the visitor experience rather than the skills participants might learn.Five years later, the number of students taking classes tripled and revenue from the school more than doubled. Monthly workshops regularly sell out, and many newcomers have gone on to take longer classes.But challenges remain. The organization must now balance the needs and desires of long-time students and collectors, who want to see the more serious side of Clay, with those of the newcomers, many of whom prefer a more social, informal experience.This publication is part of a set of case studies and reports looking at the efforts of arts organizations that received Wallace Excellence Awards to reach new audiences and deepen relationships with current ones. In three accompanying videos, Clay Studio president Chris Taylor and Magda Martinez, the program director of Fleisher Art Memorial, another Philadelphia arts organization that received a Wallace Excellence Award, discuss their audience-building efforts

Logo in mainstream schools: the struggle over the soul of an educational innovation

Technologies do not follow some predetermined and inevitable course from their context of production to their context of use, and technologies used in schools are no exception. Rather, technologies and their use in the classroom are socially contextualised. They are often appropriated in ways unanticipated by their developers, locking into institutional arrangements and reflecting elements of the prevailing social relations in and around the particular context(s) of application. Through the discussion of a particular technology (the Logo programming language) as a case study in educational innovation, this article demonstrates how the use of technologies in schools is socially shaped. The paper looks into the place that Logo occupied within the institutional and organisational cultures of US and UK mainstream schools after its introduction in the early 1980s. It discusses the ways in which Logo was received in the educational arena and was implicated in the politics of educational innovation at a time of conservative restoration

Opening the Door to the Entire Community: How Museums Are Using Permanent Collections to Engage Audiences

Examines the role of research and planning in developing successful audience-building initiatives. Museums share strategies for attracting new audiences, creating meaningful visitor experiences and maintaining artistic integrity

Discourses of Social Inclusion in Sport and Recreation in Rural Ontario

The benefits and challenges of participating in sport and recreation as a new Canadian are well documented in the existing literature, however, they are typically considered in an urban context. More specifically, a gap exists regarding how sport and recreation practitioners and managers understand social inclusion work in sport and recreation and the impact these understandings may have on newcomer populations who are living in rural and other non-metropolitan communities. The purpose of this study was to gain a more in-depth understanding of how social inclusion is understood in both sport and recreation practice and policy. Further, I sought to critically examine discourses of Whiteness in programming and policy in rural settings. Therefore, in this research, I explored two questions: 1) How do sport and recreation practitioners and managers understand social inclusion in and through sport and recreation in their rural communities? and 2) How do discourses of community and inclusion impact the way sport and recreation practitioners and managers define and understand social inclusion? An instrumental case study methodology was used to explore these questions in a region of Northern Ontario (including Nipissing and Sudbury Districts) and both semi-structured interviews and document analysis were conducted to collect data. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used for this research which helped to highlight how discourse functions to construct and transmit knowledge, and the ways this organizes and maintains social institutions (Fairclough 2001; Mogashoa, 2014). I drew from Critical Whiteness theory (CWT) to better understand how discourses of Whiteness are produced and maintained in sport and recreation. The analysis identified three discourses related to social inclusion in sport and recreation: We’re all in this together; ‘They’ aren’t from here; and Whose responsibility is it?. This research highlights how discourses of colourblindness, “othering” of diverse populations, and ambiguity of responsibility for social inclusion work may inform practice and underpin systems of Whiteness in sport and recreation. Additionally, it is important to consider how policies, practices, and understandings of social inclusion work in sport and recreation settings are translated throughout and between organizations.

The socialization of students at a midwestern college

The purpose of the study was to understand and explain the overall culture and subcultures of Prairie College (a pseudonym) and how those cultures socialized students to persist or depart from the institution. In accordance with the higher education student retention theory and research of Braxton (2000), Kuh and Love (2000), and Kuh (2001), there is potential for an institution of higher education to serve and retain greater numbers of students when administrators understand the institutional culture (Morgan, 1996; Mintzberg, 1979; Spindler, 1988) in which they work as well as that of students they serve. Qualitative research methods were used. The study answered three specific research questions: 1) how did students experience the environment/culture of Prairie College; 2) what experiences allowed the student to feel she or he belonged or did not belong at Prairie College; and 3) how did the student decide whether or not to persist at Prairie College? Examination of the institutional and student cultures of Prairie College found that 1) students were satisfied with their relationships with faculty; 2) faculty was the most influential socializing agent of the college’s institutional beliefs and values upon students; 3) faculty teaching and advising were highly valued by students and led to student persistence; 4) students valued the interpersonal intimacy Prairie College provided as a small school; 5) students valued their relationship with family and home communities and did not want to lose their connections; 6) many students desired continuation of the “high school” cultural experience at Prairie College; 7) students did not perceive administrative staff supporting the operational core nor student culture of Prairie College; 8) students desired more social enclaves to improve the overall student culture of the college; and 9) student athletics provided a positive socializing environment for students, but students who did not participate in athletics were excluded from this socialization. The overall result of individual faculty, staff, and student observations and interviews brought clarity to how students experienced Prairie College and where a cultural match among the historical, faculty, staff, and student cultures occurred, potentially promoting student persistence

Claiming expertise from betwixt and between: Digital humanities librarians, emotional labor, and genre theory

Librarians\u27 liminal (intermediate) position within academia situates us to make unique contributions to digital humanities (DH). In this article, we use genre theory, feminist theory, and theories of emotional labor to explore the importance of discourse mediation and affective labor to DH and the interplay between these areas and academic structural inequality. By claiming our expertise and making explicit work that is often not visible, we can advocate for new and varied roles for librarians in digital humanities. Our analysis is informed by both theory and practice, and it takes a dialogic approach that depends upon the interactions between the two

Los Angeles County Arts Commission: Public Engagement in the Arts - A Review of Recent Literature

Do all Americans have equal access to the arts? Are the arts accessible and inclusive for all communities? National rates of arts participation as measured by attendance at live benchmark events have been trending down for the past few decades. Consequently, a narrative of arts decline in the US has been largely accepted, even as some accounts show cultural engagement experiencing a renaissance enabled by advanced communication technologies and changing demographics.This report, informed by a review of practitioner and academic literature, charts the concerns of arts stakeholders surrounding public arts engagement since about 2000, beginning with the discovery of a statistically significant decline in benchmark attendance as observed in the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA). It also traces the role of the "informal arts" (folk, traditional and avocational arts) in broadening the definition of arts and cultural participation.Authors Henry Jenkins and Vanessa Bertossi (2007) have suggested that we are living in a "new participatory culture" distinguished by four factors:1. Low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement;2. Strong support for creating and sharing what one creates with others;3. Transmission of knowledge and skills through informal mentorship networks; and4. A degree of social currency and sense of connectedness among participantsThis new culture makes measuring arts participation more difficult because traditional distinctions between amateur and professional, hobbyist and artist, and consumer and producer are blurring. Broadening the definition of arts participation to include leisure time investment in creative pursuits and arts-making helps enlarge the definition of art's value to society (Ramirez, 2000). Expanding our sense of "what counts" initiates new conversations by reframing the old question "Why aren't people attending?" as "What are people doing with their creativity-focused leisure time?" New cultural indicators are revealing the value of arts and culture in people's everyday lives, shifting the narrative about arts participation in the early twenty-first century from decline to resurgence.Even as both the concept and measurement of "engagement" in the arts has evolved over time, the understanding of the purpose of that engagement has varied. For some organizations, engagement has meant creating new inroads to existing programming. For others, engagement has meant developing new programs to capture the attention of new audiences. In 2015, this conversation took a new direction as people moved from talking about engagement as a process to focusing instead on a key outcome: cultural equity and inclusion. In Los Angeles County, as well as across the U.S., arts organizations began to focustheir attention on ensuring that everyone has access to the benefits offered by the arts. Viewed through this lens, this literature review should be seen as a companion – a prequel, even – to the literature review on cultural equity and inclusion published by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission in March 2016