The Youngest Ages Can Turn Pages

We think of literacy as reading and writing, something children learn at school. But literacy is much more basic than that and begins at birth. Children develop the ability to learn and communicate very early in life from their parents and carers. They learn to listen and to speak before they read and write. Not all parents and carers realise the important role they play in the future development of their children. By helping to develop a child’s literacy levels they can give them a really good start not just in school but in life. Simple things like engaging children in conversation, sharing a picture book or reading with them can do so much to enhance literacy skills and help them develop their full potential. The Fingal Libraries Early Years Literacy Strategy is designed to raise awareness of early literacy among the significant adults in children’s lives. The strategy aims to motivate and equip parents and carers with the means to promote literacy among children under six. I am very proud that Fingal County Council has one of the highest library memberships in the country. We also have one of the most innovative and proactive library services. Over the years it has grown and developed by listening to the needs of our citizens. This early years literacy service is part of a process of working with the community to increase the level of literacy and enrich the lives of our people. It will foster a joy of learning and help many children develop the most delightful habit in the world – the habit of reading

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Assessing creativity in TV studio production

This paper will seek to gauge how media production can be taught within Higher Educational Institutions to inspire the next generation of programme makers to create original student led productions, rather than replicating content. Brown and Duthie ask how media educators and teachers of film and television production courses assess creativity and discuss innovative approaches to learning, teaching and assessment in the academy and ask how we can encourage risk taking in a risk averse environment. This paper considers whether contemporary global TV formats can be the catalyst for new ideas and content and how to encourage students to be film and TV making pioneers

Review of practice-led research in art, design & architecture

This review report sets out the outcomes of a 10 month investigation to describe the landscape of practice-led research in Art, Design and Architecture (ADA) in the UK and beyond. We were asked for a qualitative review but of course it has been important to gather some numbers to check and illustrate our observations. We have consulted widely, both face to face and in the virtual world, with experts and novices in the UK and around the world. We have tried to strike a balance between the natural desire of our colleagues to debate the more contentious aspects of this territory (they were never going to forgo that opportunity) and the equally strong wish of the AHRC that we should provide a clear description of what is happening. We have collected some diverse examples of research and subjected them to various examinations. We have also examined a selection of research projects funded by AHRC and other projects by creative practitioners, funded by a non-research organisation. From all this we have been able to describe the landscape in a straightforward sense: We have measures of the proportions of ADA academics involved in practice-led research. We have clarified differences in the ways that the different ADA disciplines engage with practice-led research and identified some problems that indicate possible future support strategies. We have discussed some problems with general definitions of research and identified issues that should be addressed to ensure that the AHRC definition can be applied to the full range of practice-led research. We have picked out some specific case examples that illustrate the range of contexts, methods and contributions made by practice-led researchers, and more are described in detail in Appendix F. We have also sought to assess how this research relates to the wider international picture in which the UK appears to have a strong position in both volume and development of research. We have also set out some issues that affect this community of researchers: What strengths and weaknesses have we observed and where is there a need to support development? Do the AHRC definition of research and guidance on practice-led research provide an effective framework? We have illustrated the state of development of research in ADA, and some reasons why it is less robust than might be expected from such long established disciplines. We recommend that the career path of researchers in ADA needs some attention and make some suggestions about how that could be achieved. We have also indicated some areas of inquiry that might be supported to advance the theory and methods of practice-led research. In particular we have come to the conclusion that conventional ideas of contribution to knowledge or understanding may not be serving us well. This is significant to fine artists but we believe that it relevant across ADA and a shared effort to develop appropriate new models would be a constructive development. The full set of recommendations can be found in chapter 5

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

InSEA European Regional Congress: Tales of art and curiosity

Proceedings volume from the International Society for Education through Art (InSEA) European Regional Congress

Students as change partners in the School of Literature and Languages at the University of Reading

The pedagogic landscape in Higher Education (HE) has certainly witnessed change in recent years, and involving students as partners in aspects of degree programme development is part of that change (Lowe and Dunne, 2017). Darling-Hammond (2009) described how educational systems internationally are changing priorities to enable students to ‘cope with complexity, use new technologies, and work cooperatively to frame and solve novel problems’ (p. 45). Zhao (2011) asserts that it is vital to engage students as partners in change, giving them an active hand in programme design, to enable students to develop into creative individuals who leave education with much more than just an academic qualification; it is an ‘authentic way to develop professional skills’ (Giles, Martin, Bryce & Hendry, 2004, p. 681) as well as an opportunity to develop a positive and autonomous approach to learning that will be long lasting and productive The case study which follows involved students working cooperatively with each other and with staff in a School of Literature and Languages. Together, we re-designed a new module aimed at developing students’ understanding of the demands of university level study and writing and supporting them in their transition from sixth form to Higher Education