Attitudes, behaviour, and engagement toward water consumption and conservation in a higher education setting

There is a need to develop more nuanced and playfully informed understandings of people’s attitudes and behaviour toward water consumption and conservation in particular settings, particularly if we are to design initiatives designed to engage and then change behaviour. The Southeast of England, in the United Kingdom, is an example of a water stressed region where better understandings have a potentially key role to play in helping to tackle the issue of water scarcity through attempts to reduce the personal consumption of water. Therefore, this paper presents the findings of a small-scale research project that sought to playfully engage participants in an exploration of their attitudes and behaviour toward water use in a university setting. In particular, an interactive questionnaire was designed whereby participants were encouraged to give their answers by placing counters in buckets of differently coloured water. From an awareness perspective, the study found that whilst females appeared to be more aware of their water usage, participants in general appeared to be unaware of retro fit programmes design to improve water conservation. As a result of these findings, it is suggested that future education campaigns better reflect the needs of different groups, particularly in communities with highly transient populations, such as those in University towns. From an engagement perspective, the interactive nature of the data collection was noted as appearing to be successful in encouraging engagement over time. In conclusion, it is suggested that such playful approaches to data collection and awarweness raising can be a useful in not only enaging but promoting a better understanding and awareness of water usage.Peer reviewe

Synthetic worlds, synthetic strategies: attaining creativity in the metaverse

This text will attempt to delineate the underlying theoretical premises and the definition of the output of an immersive learning approach pertaining to the visual arts to be implemented in online, three dimensional synthetic worlds. Deviating from the prevalent practice of the replication of physical art studio teaching strategies within a virtual environment, the author proposes instead to apply the fundamental tenets of Roy Ascott’s “Groundcourse”, in combination with recent educational approaches such as “Transformative Learning” and “Constructionism”. In an amalgamation of these educational approaches with findings drawn from the fields of Metanomics, Ludology, Cyberpsychology and Presence Studies, as well as an examination of creative practices manifest in the metaverse today, the formulation of a learning strategy for creative enablement unique to online, three dimensional synthetic worlds; one which will focus upon “Play” as well as Role Play, virtual Assemblage and the visual identity of the avatar within the pursuits, is being proposed in this chapter

Synthetic worlds, synthetic strategies: attaining creativity in the metaverse

This text will attempt to delineate the underlying theoretical premises and the definition of the output of an immersive learning approach pertaining to the visual arts to be implemented in online, three dimensional synthetic worlds. Deviating from the prevalent practice of the replication of physical art studio teaching strategies within a virtual environment, the author proposes instead to apply the fundamental tenets of Roy Ascott’s “Groundcourse”, in combination with recent educational approaches such as “Transformative Learning” and “Constructionism”. In an amalgamation of these educational approaches with findings drawn from the fields of Metanomics, Ludology, Cyberpsychology and Presence Studies, as well as an examination of creative practices manifest in the metaverse today, the formulation of a learning strategy for creative enablement unique to online, three dimensional synthetic worlds; one which will focus upon “Play” as well as Role Play, virtual Assemblage and the visual identity of the avatar within the pursuits, is being proposed in this chapter

Massive Open Online Courses as affinity spaces for connected learning: Exploring effective learning interactions in one massive online community

This paper describes a participatory online culture – Connected Learning Massive Open Online Collaboration (CLMOOC) – and asks how its ethos of reciprocity and creative playfulness occurs. By analysing Twitter interactions over a four-week period, we conclude that this is due to the supportive nature of participants, who describe themselves as belonging to, or connected with, the community. We suggest that Gee’s concept of an affinity space is an appropriate model for CLMOOC and ask how this might be replicated in a higher education setting

Representing camp: Constructing macaroni masculinity in eighteenth century visual satire

This article asks how ‘Camp,’ as defined in Sontag’s 1964 essay, ‘Notes on Camp,’ might provide a valuable framework for the analysis of late eighteenth-century satirical prints, specifically those featuring images of the so-called ‘macaroni.’ Discussing a number of satirical prints and contemporary writings on the macaroni, the article reads them against Sontag’s text in order to establish its utility as a critical framework for understanding the images’ complex relationship of content, form, and function.Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburg

Wandering Fests: Relational Orientations in Academic Writing

Based on a number of PhD workshops called Wandering Feasts, in collaboration between Monash University and Design School Kolding, this article explores academic writing as both a mode and a method of inquiry. The article both points to and performs five creative-relational orientations to alternative academic writing: Performativity in challenging dominant ways of knowing and representing knowledge in the academy; emergence as mindfully holding open ideas of purpose and destination in favour of not-knowing; reciprocity in collectively creating charged encounters that spark new ways of knowing; improvisation in building social space where we felt comfortable jamming and givenness as a fundamental playfulness in which an academic community nurtures the courage to give–of ourselves. The article is in itself a manifestation of exploration writing in a playful and loosely defined process

Rhetorical Invention in a 21st Century Technoculture: A New Ludic Framework for Learning

This dissertation proposes the ludic framework for learning as an innovative pedagogical model that privileges play, possibility, failure, and social affinity as states of being and positions for learning. The ludic framework works through rhetorics of play as a frame of reference; rhetorics of possibility and invention as a means of production; the acceptance of transformative failure; and engages with digital communities to further knowledge through social affinity while being grounded in constructionist learning theories. The principles that facilitate this are: curiosity, play, flexibility, metacognition, collaboration, invention, persistence, and creativity. To demonstrate this, the dissertation has two case studies: a semester project that explains the need and procedures for teaching technologies in a workflow and a three-dimensional representation of the research in Minecraft: Education Edition

Startup communities: notes on the sociality of tech-entrepreneurs in Manchester

In this contribution I explore the conflicting moralities and practices of technology entrepreneurship through the lenses of Mary Douglas’ Grid-Group Cultural Theory. Starting from the distinction between communitarian, individualistic and hierarchical culture, I explore my empirical material drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in Manchester, UK. In particular, I describe the sociality of young male tech-entrepreneurs at networking events, ‘coffices’ and coworkspaces around an urban ‘creative quarter’. I argue that ‘startup communities’ simultaneously encourage individualistic market-competition, contribute to feelings of local group-belonging and are narrative constructions promoted by entrepreneurs, corporations and the State.Universidad de Sevill