» Let's Talk About Arts Education for a Minute
» Featured Report: Building Open Ed Resources
» Special Collection Focuses on Foreclosures
» FootNotes: Blog On!
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IssueLab eNews

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Issue 28 — July 8, 2009

Whether you are a parent, teacher, artist, program evaluator, or simply someone who cares about improving education, take a minute or two to listen to this month's Podcast. IssueLab's Stacy Kessler talked to three people who have dedicated themselves to arts education, asking them about the role that research plays in developing the field, the importance of evaluation, and the future of arts ed.

And for those of you who would rather skim than listen we have also begun providing transcripts of the podcast interviews:

• John Abodeely, Manager of Arts Education at Americans for the Arts
• There se Quinn, Associate Professor of Art Education at School of the Art Institute Chicago
• Tom DeCaigney, Executive Director, Performing Arts Workshop

Get up to speed with what's happening in the classroom by delving into some of the 60+ case studies and evaluations of Arts Ed programs currently featured on IssueLab.

[ image provided under CC license by carf ]

» Featured Report: Building Open Ed Resources

Building Open Educational Resources from the Ground Up: South Africa's Free High School Science Texts
Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education

This month's featured report offers a truly useful case study in how open education projects can not only survive but also thrive. The report follows the development and unexpected growth of a project whose goal was to create a free high school science text for all teachers and learners in South Africa.

The study provides other organizations working in the field of open educational resources not only with a set of best practices unique to our field but also with on-the-ground ideas about how to assess, track, and share our learnings (lessons learned) in ways that are in keeping with the spirit and goals of the relatively new field of open educational resources.

Some of the key points in the case study include:

• The important role that face-to-face collaboration played in sustaining momentum during the development of this online project.
• The necessity of having content facilitated and vetted both from the top-down and bottom-up, ensuring its relevance at the same time as ensuring that it would meet broader standards.
• An organizational culture and work process that valued experimentation and adaptation.

There are many more interesting lessons and insights to gain from this short report. If your work even touches on educational content, open access, online archiving, knowledge sharing, nonprofit evaluation, or nonprofit management, give this one a read.

» Special Collection: Foreclosures

As part of our larger collection of research on the topic of housing and homelessness we are pleased to bring you this special collection on the topic of foreclosures.

Lindley R. Higgins, Applied Research Manager for NeighborWorks America, offers us his expertise and perspective on the issue of foreclosures and on IssueLab's special collection on the topic:

"The foreclosure crisis in the United States has not only caused banks to fail and investment portfolios to collapse, but it has also devastated families and communities. And the crisis is far from over.

IssueLab has assembled a collection of research that can inform responses to this crisis. The papers here range from descriptions of local effects to strategies for mitigating foreclosures' impacts. Researchers and practitioners can read about how foreclosures have affected Atlanta or Chicago, or the relationship between foreclosures and homelessness, or foreclosures and crime. These papers help in understanding the very important question of how we got into this mess in the first place, with varying perspectives presented.

The current crisis will one day recede into memory. But the lessons learned should remain with us for a long time to come. IssueLab is making this possible by assembling the latest research from the institutions most involved in solving this crisis and making it easily accessible to a public that has a real need to know."

Given that this crisis is far from over, take ten minutes to get a better understanding of how we got here and what sadly many more Americans can expect in the months and years to come. Read more from Lindley Higgins and the organizations who have contributed research to this special collection on foreclosures.

[ image provided under a CC license by Andrew Ciscel ]

» FootNotes: Blog On! Blog On!

Come on, catch up now! IssueLab is blogging and can't stop. (Don't forget to read the comments and please chime in if we touch a nerve or make you nod vigorously at your screen!)

• Lucky #7: Ways IssueLab Gets Exposure for Your Work
• Identifying Innovation
• Numbers vs. Humans

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