READ THIS BLOG POST about the story of how our first sponsor inspired this and what the project is all about or GO TO THE HOME PAGE to see the launch live stream at Midday.
STEAM Co.’s Artistic Response to Covid19:
Content and Collaboration Hub
#CommunityLockIn
#Rocket Kids Club
UK Art Take-Over
Co-Conferences
NO APP FOR THAT
As the highly influential #EdTech50 report showed recently, there are many people doing great things with creative uses of technology in our schools, from green screen apps, to BBC Micro:Bit coding apps to periodic tables of apps
But how often do we see the Edtech industry itself using the tech?
Is there ‘an app for that’?
Well we need something NOW because everything is up for grabs as events, festivals and even schools days themselves are cancelled.
How can we use the tech to connect us all?
Who is best placed to make this happen?
Who gets Creativity, Tech and People?
Who gets Art?
“Now more than ever we need to work together. We need a common focus across education, industry and society.
Everyone can play their part and I’m so pleased to see a grass roots community art project like this from STEAM Co. leading the way”
A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN
If, like us, you see Art as the Killer Combo of Creativity, Tech and People and if you wanted to collaborate on an Art-based project to connect us all at this time who would you want to collaborate with?
We know. And we are.
Full version of our launch film and chat with John Jackson, CEO of LGFL above. Shorter trailer here.
STEAM Co. TEAMS UP WITH EDTECH GIANT
“We absolutely love what STEAM Co. do.
We love the way they think out of the box.
We love the way they’re doing creativity.
We love the way they put art and collaboration at the centre of what they do.
Because LGFL is passionate about all these things too and by supporting this #CommunityLockIn we won’t only be supporting and helping connect our own family of schools, but those across the country, if not the world.
We need to come together like this to beat the Corona Virus and its impact on the way we work, learn and play”
Yes we’re delighted to be collaborating with LGFL on our #CommunityLockIn - our artistic response to the Corona Virus Crisis.
And who better?
LGFL not only provide high speed internet connectivity for London but increasingly schools across the UK.
They are also a great team of committed, experienced and inspiring people who offer fantastic creative content and curriculum resources as well as tools via the complete Adobe Creative Cloud suite we swear by and which are provided free of charge to schools as part of LGFL’s package.
As you can see in the film here we collaborated with them recently on an #ARTofCODE Day at one of our partner schools, Parklands Primary which serves one of the most challenged communities in Leeds and whose connectivity LGLF are in the process of upgrading.
That’s the #ARTofCARING and LGFL are our kind of artists!
CONFERENCE CANCELLED? NOT QUITE
As you will have seen from the film above of John and Nick’s chat, LGFL have unsurprisingly had to cancel the curriculum conference scheduled for 23rd of April at which Nick was to give the closing keynote speech.
Well they've cancelled it physically anyway, as STEAM Co. have proposed a creative technology solution using the very technology that LGFL are well known for.
Nick’s talk was to be under the banner of #LGFLArtTakeover , following on from the week-long Art take-over of the Isle of Wight, a collaboration of schools, local creatives, cultural organisations and businesses via National Careers Week.
STEAM Co.’s next art take-over was due to take in the whole of the month of May with a Parliament launch (here’s one we did earlier), UK tour (like this) and a weekend at a leading Festival (we’ve done a few of those too). Now also all up in the air.
All this, part of STEAM Co.’s year-long #COLLABORATE20 Festival to promote and facilitate collaboration between schools, business and broader society.
#COLLABORATE20 ?
Following on from last year’s #ARTCONNECTS19 Festival of Creative Schools Work and Lives inspired by the then culture minister the Rt Hon Jeremy Wight MP, the #COLLABORATE20 follow on was inspired by a former head teacher, the work of a leading business woman and a world famous musician.
THE EDUCATOR
Last summer Richard Gerver published a milestone book called “Education: A Manifesto for Change” which called for collaboration with our schools. He also recorded an epic podcast with us about it and his work.
Once a highly innovative and effective school community leader and now a globally renowned author, speaker and broadcaster across education, leadership and innovation Richard generously spoke at our #ARTofCOLLABORATION event with Havas Advertising in Kings Cross.
The BUSINESS WOMAN
Kings Cross is also home to another organisation who have supported STEAM Co, since our first events at the Royal Institution in London and in Liverpool.
Nishma Rob is the UK Marketing Director of Google who, in a talk at our #ARTCONNECTS event in Kings Cross talked about what they look for in people and how that might inspire teachers, parents and education policy.
For us, Google are the epitome of an organisation stradling creativity and technology, with collaboration at their very core.
THE MUSICIAN
At our #OURART19 week of events in Liverpool at the end of last year, we were delighted when Nile Rodgers offered to do a video call for us to a school in Toxteth Liverpool.
He spoke to us from the 40th celebrations in New York of the anthem he wrote for Sister Sledge “We are family”.
As he said “For me collaboration is everything. Beethoven may have written the fifth symphony, but he can’t play it.
For that he needs a whole orchestra”
“Our country hasn’t had to pull together like this for decades.
I’m supporting this project because of the way it brings together many people and organisations with a common passion for creativity and all our futures – everyday, people in our schools, business and broader society.
It’s what I call a collaborative dream team”
#COMMUNITY LOCK-IN
So, faced with all our keynote talks at conferences, school events and festival appearances cancelled for the foreseeable future we saw a major opportunity in taking the LGFL Curriculum Conference online via a collaboration with this visionary creative technology organisation.
On Monday 30th March we are launching a #COMMUNITY LOCK-IN consisting of:
#ARTCONNECTS - daily online content and inspiration showing Art, Tech and Creativity in Schools, Work and Lives for parents, teachers and creatives/creative carers
#ROCKET KIDS CLUB - online community for kids who aim high (with their parents). A modern day version of the Holiday Playscheme that Nick’s inspirational mum and dad co-founded and ran for over ten years in his home town in Shropshire 40 years ago
#COCONFERENCE - a facility to host pre-planned conferences online such as one we were due to be speak at. We have many organisations signed up to support and use this facility.
#UK ART TAKE-OVER - a month of UK wide creative activity in May as part of Voluntary Arts/BBC Get Creative Week and other events we are collaborating with. We also want to raise funds to put more of our STEAM Co. Pop-Up Day Drop Trucks on the road to run our creativity pops ups like this one in the film here at the Notting Hill Carnival Pioneers Festival last summer.
HI-VIZ AND HARD HATS
So we’re busy looking for a location to set up a fully functioning Community Communication Studio and Collaboration Centre.
We originally hoped to relocate STEAM Co. to a place we had access to on the North Cornwall Coast but out of respect for the health and food security of the local community, and then government travel advisories against unnecessary travel.
One place we had our eye on didn’t work out as you can see in the film above so we decided to stay put in West London.
Within the next few days we hope to go live, certainly by Monday 30th March.
On 1st March we’re teaming up with #COFIGHT19 - a bounce-back campaign to #FightTheFear, bringing together the nation's creative ideas to provide practical support, comfort, inspiration & hope in a global health crisis.
IT TAKES A WHOLE VILLAGE
The Community Lock-In really is a collaboration of people and organisations from across Education, Business and Society, all coming together across political and ideological lines:.
“What your’re doing is just brilliant.
I’m going to help you make this happen”
Matthew Taylor, CEO The RSA in STEAM Co. Podcast
An RSA Fellowship project, it accesses 35,000 Fellows across the World at one extreme and thousands of teachers and Head Teachers via truly grass roots groups such as BrewEd, Teacher5aDay, Teacher5OClockClub and #FFBWednesday.
In business we are collaborating with the National Careers Week and making full use of our membership of the Creative Industries Federation
From the tip of Cornwall to the Great North East, and across borders into Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, everyone is stepping up.
“What’s particularly special about STEAM Co.’s Community Lock-In is how everyone has stepped up to support and be a part of it. We showing, not only that it takes a whole village to inspire a child but that the whole village wants to be a part of this, with their art, whatever it is.
It’s showing how art connects”
We’re particularly pleased to have the support of fellow art activists like Susan Coles and art education consultant Paul Carney in South Tyneside.
See this clip of the magic of Carol Allen speaking at our Inventors Launch event in Sunderland a few years ago. She is a globally renown special needs education specialist and consultant with LGFL and whose inspiration we will bring to families and communities who need it more than ever at this time.
HOW CAN, WILL YOU BE A PART OF THIS?
As ever, this plane took off before we’d finished building it, but as we teach our kids, we’re aiming high with it.
We need more sponsors from across the board. For more info see the campaign home page
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WISH US LUCK!!!
“It might not work, but here’s the thing.
The guy who invented the ship also invented the shipwreck, and either you’re in or you’re out.
Either you want to play this game or you don’t.
Art doesn’t work because we did something conventional and predictable, and here it is industrialised, right?
Art works because we connected. ”