Links Round Up, 16th June 2013
Here’s a roundup of things that have caught my eye of the past few weeks:
So, the figure is 8%
A week after Stan’s Cafe’s most concerning blog about the projected consequences of 5, 10 or 15% cuts to ACE funding, the Department of Culture has agreed to an 8% budget cut. What does this mean? Well as Stan’s Cafe’s blog indicates, just a 5% cut could result in one third of English subsidised arts companies losing all of their national public funding, even if lottery money may help 200 or so organisations that can no longer be given revenue funding. Whilst it could have been worse, the consequences of 8% alone are likely to be marked!
The future of the library
The Arts Council have brought out a report looking at the Future of our libraries. Envisioning the Future of Libraries looks at where the services might go. With mixed reviews by professionals (see here), there are obvious questions over allocations of costs, resources especially ACE seems to allude to the future cuts that are going to take place, but crucially how libraries need to step up and work out how they are going to best serve the needs of their community.
The future of literacy is to code
According to NESTA, digital learning is the fourth literacy behind english, maths and science and ahead of the arts. Interestingly 67% of British Children aged 8-15 want to learn to code, but still only 3% know how to!
…. And the youth of the UK are pretty confident in their Digital Literacy, stating that they are more “tech savvy” than their global peers according to this survey from Telefonica. The research found that 49 percent in the UK believed they had an “excellent knowledge of technology” compared to just 30 percent worldwide.
Culture Net
Culture Net has been set up as the primary source of information on arts and cultural provision for children and young people in the West Midlands. Full of very useful information, Culture Net profiles the major providers of cultural services for 0 to 19 year olds in schools and other settings.
Some Tech stuff
Google Street View Hyperlapse
This is brill, an experiment for creating interactive Google Street View hyper-lapse animations. Learn more about this project here.
3D Printing Courses
To show the progress of 3D Printing, this course at the brilliant Betahaus in Berlin, shows where I think we are going. The hands-on 3D printing course is for all levels, novices up to designers. No experience is required! Just bring your laptop, a 3-butto mouse and the rest is taught
… and if proof, if any was needed, of where we are going, we will soon be producing custom 3D-printed sugar for “mega cool cakes” (as it is described!).
Dumb Store
Still a significant number of us do not use smartphones, or dumb phones as they’re charmingly described. The Dumb Store caters for this … in their own words: “The Dumb Store is a demonstration of what can be done using dumb phones.” I think it also points more fundamentally to the fact that still a significant number of people do not use smart phones.
Why Are There So Many Productivity Apps and How Do I Pick One?
This is the question posed by Thorin Klosowski in this entertaining read. I’m an app geek and always trying loads of them because I enjoy it. Occasionally I might switch but also it is because I want my clients to make informed choices, but I always go back to the same few that work best for me. As Thorin says, “it’s not about the app you use, it’s how you use it. Find one that works and stick with it.”
Tictail – the new free online shop (up to a point!)
If you don’t want to make a complicated shop to sell your products, Tictail provides you the tools you need to create a shop in minutes, the basics of which are FREE. Tictail has some premium options like discounts, password protection or a custom web address, but this is a pretty cool free platform to watch out for.
