Fostering Open Educational practices in cross-cultural contexts

The open content movement is breaking down traditional barriers to learning and resource sharing by promoting free access to Open Educational Resources (OERs) such as digital educational content and technological tools for teaching and learning. OERs have the potential to enable learners to champion their own learning by providing free access to educational content and tools that enable them to create, use and share knowledge. However, the design and uptake of OERs is often hampered by limited understanding of issues relating to the context in which learners access and use OERs. This paper discusses some of the approaches taken to foster open educational practices in learner use of OERs offered by The Open University’s open content initiative, OpenLearn. Drawing on these experiences, we then consider future ideas about supporting open educational practices in cross-cultural contexts, and, in collaboration with Tshwane University of Technology, examine potential impact of OERs in Africa

Virtual reality in theatre education and design practice - new developments and applications

The global use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has already established new approaches to theatre education and research, shifting traditional methods of knowledge delivery towards a more visually enhanced experience, which is especially important for teaching scenography. In this paper, I examine the role of multimedia within the field of theatre studies, with particular focus on the theory and practice of theatre design and education. I discuss various IT applications that have transformed the way we experience, learn and co-create our cultural heritage. I explore a suite of rapidly developing communication and computer-visualization techniques that enable reciprocal exchange between students, theatre performances and artefacts. Eventually, I analyse novel technology-mediated teaching techniques that attempt to provide a new media platform for visually enhanced information transfer. My findings indicate that the recent developments in the personalization of knowledge delivery, and also in student-centred study and e-learning, necessitate the transformation of the learners from passive consumers of digital products to active and creative participants in the learning experience

Media literacy at all levels: making the humanities more inclusive

The decline of the humanities, combined with the arrival of students focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), represent an opportunity for the development of innovative approaches to teaching languages and literatures. Expanding the instructional focus from traditional humanities students, who are naturally more text-focused, to address the needs of more application-oriented STEM learners ensures that language instructors prepare all students to become analytical and critical consumers and producers of digital media. Training students to question motives both in their own and authentic media messages and to justify their own interpretations results in more sophisticated second language (L2) communication. Even where institutional structures impede comprehensive curriculum reform, individual instructors can integrate media literacy training into their own classes. Tis article demonstrates ways of reaching and retaining larger numbers of students at all levels—if necessary, one course at a time.Published versio

CLIP/CETL Fellowship Report 2006/7 : Enhancing practice - to investigate an appropriate strategy for using Clip Cetl enhanced textile facilities to improve the student learning experience

To investigate and identify an appropriate strategy to inform the planning of course teams for the use of LCF’s enhanced textile facility at Lime Grove. The project aimed to design material to underpin workshop based specialist skills and establish a system to encourage the creative use of new equipment. The work aimed to enrich the student learning experience and enable students’ learning to be organised on a more flexible basis by supporting independent learning

Assessing Creativity: A Test for Drawing Production using Digital Art Tools The concept, application and assessment of digital art teaching as a means of enhancing creative proficiency

This paper describes the Test for Creative Thinking - Drawing Production (TCT-DP), including its design, concept and mode of assessment, and the practical consequences of its application in a specific context. The test was used to evaluate the performance of groups of students as part of a case study exploring the use of digital art tools for drawing in a junior school. The students used specific digital art software via both computers and tablets, and also drew manually using a variety of devices. TCP-DP evaluates drawing production by means of a set of 14 criteria. At the same time, this study used the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) theory to assess the ease of use and usefulness of the digital tools. The test was trialled with students aged 9-10 years in different ability groups. There were no significant differences in performance between male and female participants. Details of various related studies, together with data concerning the reliability and validity of the TCT-DP test, are also provided. The study finds that motivation is an important factor in improving young people’s artistic ability

Product design as a vehicle to integrate arts and sciences in design education

In many parts of the world, Higher Education has often considered arts and sciences as an odd combination and many institutions have avoided this particular mix. Historically, this has been the accepted view; however, this view is changing. This paper provides a detailed account of curriculum development and strategies for enabling arts and science disciplines to blend in an effective way. It shows how strong alliances can be built in line with industry and general design practice expectations through “Live Projects”, that is projects sponsored by industry or other clients. The case studies provided in the paper are based on work conducted in the Product Design and Engineering Department at Middlesex University. The paper further demonstrates the importance of industry involvement, and how industrial collaborations can be managed to ensure that the academic provision is both relevant to the sector as well as responding to the needs of students. The paper was presented at the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR07), held at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The papers for the conference were reviewed in a double blind review process, and the conference was attended by an audience of over 400 delegates, focusing on emerging trends in design researc

Spot the Difference! Visual plagiarism in the visual arts.

Over recent years there has been considerable investment in the use of technology to identify sources of text-based plagiarism in universities. However, students of the visual arts are also required to complete numerous pieces of visual submissions for assessment, and yet very little similar work has been undertaken in the area of non-text based plagiarism detection. The Spot the Difference! project (2011-2012), funded by JISC and led by the University for the Creative Arts, seeks to address this gap by piloting the use of visual search tools developed by the University of Surrey and testing their application to support learning and teaching in the arts and specifically to the identification of visual plagiarism. Given that most commonly used search technologies rely on text, the identification and evidencing of visual plagiarism is often left to the knowledge and experience of academic staff, which can potentially result in inconsistency of detection, approach, policies and practices. This paper outlines the work of the project team, who sought to investigate the nature, scope and extent of visual plagiarism in the arts education sector

Film education project with youth

There is a broad consensus on the recognition of cinema as a means of acquiring media literacy. The problematization of cinema as an artistic expression and the promotion of interdisciplinarity between the areas of communication, cinema and education and artistic education in particular that have been established in the field of communication science teaching. In this context, the purpose of this article is to describe action-research projects that are repeated annually, when students are confronted with cinema, audiovisual language, analysis of still and moving images, the follow-up of documentary creation with students from different courses, and their involvement in the dynamization of an audiovisual space from the text of a Portuguese writer, Almada Negreiros "Manifesto Anti Dantas" or interviews in rural communities, using video cameras, within the International Project Rural 3.0 Service-Learning for Rural Development, which is an international transversal project, funded in July 2018 by E+ Knowledge Alliances, coordinated by the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, involving sixteen partners from eight European countries.Erasmus + Programme of the European Union, under the development of the project entitled “3.0- Service Learning for the Rural Development” | Promotor: Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Casteloinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Collaborative pedagogy and digital scholarship: a case study of 'Media Culture 2020'

This paper presents an educational case study of ‘Media Culture 2020’, an EU Erasmus Intensive Programme that utilised a range social media platforms and computer software to create open, virtual spaces where students from different countries and fields could explore and learn together. The multi-disciplinary project featured five universities from across Europe and was designed to develop new pedagogical frameworks to encourage collaborative approaches to teaching and learning in the arts. The main objective of the project was to break down classroom and campus walls by creating digital learning environments that facilitated new forms of production, transmission and representation of knowledge. Media Culture 2020 was designed to pilot a novel mode of ‘blended learning’, demonstrating a number of ways in which ‘Web 2.0’ networked technologies might be adopted by academics to encourage open and collaborative modes of practice. The project utilised a number of social media platforms (including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Google Hangout, Google Docs and Blogger) to enhance the learning experiences of a diverse set of students from different cultural and international contexts. In doing so, Media Culture 2020 enabled participants with a diverse range skills and cultural experiences to develop new working practices that respond to the convergence of digital media and art, as well as the internationalisation of media production and business, through the use of open, interactive software

The LAB@FUTURE Project - Moving Towards the Future of E-Learning

This paper presents Lab@Future, an advanced e-learning platform that uses novel Information and Communication Technologies to support and expand laboratory teaching practices. For this purpose, Lab@Future uses real and computer-generated objects that are interfaced using mechatronic systems, augmented reality, mobile technologies and 3D multi user environments. The main aim is to develop and demonstrate technological support for practical experiments in the following focused subjects namely: Fluid Dynamics - Science subject in Germany, Geometry - Mathematics subject in Austria, History and Environmental Awareness – Arts and Humanities subjects in Greece and Slovenia. In order to pedagogically enhance the design and functional aspects of this e-learning technology, we are investigating the dialogical operationalisation of learning theories so as to leverage our understanding of teaching and learning practices in the targeted context of deployment