This project will leverage the motivational learning potential of popular music to enhance the understanding of major social issues in the history of New York State. We request support for planning focused on pedagogical design, content and public partnership development that will lead to a mobile app that ties artistic and scholarly content to museums and cultural institutions around the state through GPS technology. The GPS locater will deliver modularized, on demand content relevant to the cultural/historical site. A web-based platform will accompany the mobile app to offer the same content from any location. This app will leverage both SUNY resources and historical/cultural resources across the state for deep explorations of our state’s history for SUNY students, faculty, K12 students and the general public. This project will also demonstrate the vital role that music plays in understanding social issues. Music, like other art forms, serves to reflect and/or drive public understanding of unfolding questions of equality, democracy and more. This arts-integrated curriculum and the resulting mobile app will provide an “on ramp” to complex social issues for scholars, students and the general public while celebrating the work of SUNY faculty and students. This planning project will assemble a diverse team of scholars, educators, students, cultural leaders, technical specialists and business leaders to ensure that the design and delivery of the resulting technology will have maximum impact upon public dialogue surrounding the enduring questions of New York State history. Furthermore, this platform will be scaled up in subsequent phases to increase public access to many other art collections that lie relatively hidden on SUNY campus across the state.

Outcomes TBD (August 2016)