On Monday we held the first stage of training for the #citizenrelay project; an ambitious attempt to follow the Olympic torch relay across Scotland during two weeks in June, capturing the alternative stories of the games, the stories that you wouldn’t usually hear out in the mainstream media, and producing an national archive, connecting communities and beginning to construct a Scottish network of citizen reporters for future activities, events and festivals beyond 2012. The video above gives an idea of some of the ideas and discussions that were had between ourselves about how we just might make this happen.

In a way, the torch relay is a catalyst for a bigger project or even more of an aim, one that intends to map out those who using online media production skills to develop local and citizen generated media (so partnerships with the Media Trust’s Newsnet project is crucial), as well as offering the opportunity to train, support and demystify the mobile and internet technology required to participate, establishing ways of encouraging those who are exposed to the training to not only get the chance to ‘learn’ about social media, but instead to gain the confidence to go back to their own networks and spread the word.

The project, unlike mainstream media outlets, needs to be scalable so they workload is spread, but also decentralised, connected only in the loosest terms by a set of keywords (citizenrelay, media2012 for instance – more commonly know as hashtags (#) these day) but also connected by the wider event, the relay, the spectacle if you are coming at this from the academic world, but the fact that for a short period of time, at least the illusion of the international media coming to town is utilised for the benefits of citizenship, rather than corporate sponsors/government propaganda and the controlled public relations rhetoric.

In simple terms, there are very few opportunities where communities of a nation can feel connected together as being part of the same story. The story doesn’t need to agree with the story that those who are implementing the event would like to achieve. It is about asking the questions, at the time, about what this torch relay really means for people, helping them feel confident to express their opinions about it (and related events) and to see value in knowing how to not only understand the purpose and value of such events, but to become part of the media making process.

With a convoy of over 150 vehicles that accompany the relay (which I will be covering and demonstrating tomorrow in Leicester as part of the trial run with local community organisation citizenseye.org tomorrow) and the fact that it is not a continuous process, but an edited collection of separate runners, and possibly multiple torches on the route, packed up and driven between carefully selected locations on the map- demonstrated through the fact that they will be covering the majority of Scotland’s landmass in one day (Glasgow-Inverness, a long drive at the best of times without stopping for the photo opportunity) whilst spending three days in and around Edinburgh and St Andrews, potentially emphasising the most London/power/empire centric/friendly city in Scotland.

Through preparing and engaging communities on and also off the route, we can attempt to build/facilitate a bigger, more decentralisation or realistic coverage of the process. For instance, are we interested in the torch bearer, maybe, certainly not when they are running, we won’t get access, but perhaps instead before or after the event, building a picture of the decisions made by those who selected them. What is the wider agenda?

But we need help. And we need help soon.

We have had a lot of support from a range of individuals and organisations, including friends and friends of friends who are situated across Scotland who have been suggesting people based on local knowledge and engaging with groups on our behalf. That’s what twitter is great for, it cut through previous communication structures and hierarchies and allows for things to happen. We have also had many people retweet and share our recruitment drive for interns (who have all be selected based on their online skills and local knowledge) and reporters (a more general role that anybody, at whatever level, can get involved in) by posting the promotional materials on their own social networking profiles and has been reblogged by the Big Lottery Fund, Education Scotland and Creative Scotland, Creative Loop Student Media Festival as well as our own institution University of the West of Scotland and the Skillset Media Academy. This is great, and it legitimises the process and the project through the amazing institutional interest in supporting the idea and the event.

However, it is still very top-down marketing in traditional means, the assumption that because we are XYZ and funded by a public arts council that people will come in their droves. Press releases and project blogging can do spectacular things in terms of influence of the project content and what we might do beyond the event, but this activity is about the people who make it happen, and it will be shaped and changed by both those we encounter, those who champion it and those who tell the stories. So we need to move away from just using the online version of traditional marketing, that has a place, but the place is not two weeks before training.

It was always going to be difficult to recruit beyond the West coast where our networks are. Where the people we can meet for coffee and  get excited about ideas for being creative with social media around a once in a lifetime event such as this, and face to face is not always easy with a country as unique as Scotland – where notions of time and space function differently from the rest of the UK (that’s another blog post I’m afraid) – so we need to utilise we have got, existing ideas, networks, opportunities.

So this post is less about championing about what we are and why you should get involved, it is a discussion, who do you know that you think would be great for being an ambassador, a contact point, a trainer, a curator, a champion, however you interpret the project – for a citizen relay in the place you live in Scotland? Have you got any ideas about how we might collaborate on your existing projects in your area? It doesn’t matter if the torch doesn’t come anywhere near you, we want to know about what is happening in your area during that time, it doesn’t matter if you don’t think that you are fit into the project, you probably can, it is about everyone, not just those who want to produce media content.

We are running training days in Inverness (3rd May), Aberdeen (4th May), Glasgow (5th May) and Edinburgh (6th May) and we would love to get as many people as we can to be there. We have expenses to help those who are not from the cities (and we don’t expect you to be) to get there for it – and the only thing that you need to do beyond that is to describe, capture, archive, narrate, the story of the torch relay in scotland on your own terms.

So can you help us? Can you suggest contacts or nominate individuals, groups or even yourself for the reporter role. Is it education? arts? media? libraries? voluntary organisations? creative businesses? or something else?

Several months ago, I was approached by JISC Inform, an online magazine, produced by JISC and used to raise awareness of technology in further and higher education in the UK. Having found me on twitter, they wanted to profile me as an open researcher in a ‘day in the life’ style of what my researcher practice looks like. It was a really enjoyable process that forced me to think about what (and why) I do and I feel quite honoured to be approached in the first place. The final article was recently published in their spring edition as is available in full multimedia glory (including me interviewing myself) on their website.

Last week I was invited along (with around 40 others) to be part of a discussion group that was looking at education for the crisis. There were some people there who are good friends, people who I had never met but been following for twitter (in some cases, for years), some who I had came across at events and others who I had never met. They ranged from academics, activists and artists (which always seems to go well together) and aimed to open up chatter around particular topics related to technology, economics, social issues and sustainability in education.

Structure

The format was designed not to see if we could provide solutions, but instead to simply talk in a capacity that might often not happen in our existing environments. There were a few ice breakers (where I found out that I was the only Scottish person in the room) and many break out sessions which started as discussions around particular pre-defined topics and then around personal suggestions from members of the group. The final session was focused on action, that is, things that were already happening, could happen or should happen after we left the room.

Background

I’ve been to and followed online a few events of this theme over the last 2 years, mainly as a curious observer, and mostly around pre-occupy education-related activities and more recently, anti-Olympic meets and reactions to changes in HE policy in England.

The link between higher education and, for now, the forthcoming Olympic Games have been a constant for me throughout my PhD, perhaps because it is so close to me in terms of lifestyle, research and online discussions – or just general political context of the UK in 2012, the use of the games as a political tool (or a societal shock doctrine in terms of using mega events implement policy etc) and the almost exact repetition of similar news stories and media themes ahead of the last Olympic Games in Vancouver and the same before that in Beijing in 2008. It is difficult to predict what the impact of direct action might be against the forces of the biggest PR machines in the world.

Reflection

I’ve thought long and hard about my role in fighting/challenging/resisting/opposing the current changes in higher eduction, and more, recently, if I even want to, at least in this way. Not that I am saying I agree with what might happen, but I’m finding myself increasingly intimidated by being in rooms with people who have read more critical theory than others, speak about wanting change, then speaking in a language that turns off supporters (like myself – and I’ve done 3.5 years of a PhD!), let alone reaches out to the people they articulate they want to help – young people predominantly. Very rarely have I seen young people in these spaces, and when I do, they are kept elsewhere whilst the ‘adults’ are speaking. And often being the youngest in the room, at a ripe old age of 27, I feel like I have more in common and therefore, more to say, to the teenagers outside, fiddling with their ipods, than the rest of the group discussing the future. I’ve often walked out of ‘open spaces’ because they make me feel more claustrophobic, drained in fact, than ever, despite finding the subject areas discussed interesting and valuable and entirely appropriate.

Citizen Media in this space.

From spending time working with community media groups such as Citizens Eye, which is grounded heavily in social support and community engagement (such as the work of WotBox Consultancies in schools and the array of news agencies that cover widely personal politics of individuals and brings them together across Leicestershire) as before the actual act of producing media, I’ve learned that one of the best use of energy that I can give is to work in these spaces, with the people who make it feel so rewarding.

The wider networks of citizen media makers that I’ve encountered through these projects (in the UK and further afield) leave me feeling energised and like we can use forward and achieve something, whatever that something is, if something if just waking up in the morning and not wanting to spend it hiding under the covers. Of course, these experiences on their own are not the wider solutions, or even the processes for working towards an ‘alternative’ discourse (that we can somehow own) about how we think about our planet, but in someway, neither is through imposing a new phrase regime to the same old problems.

I’m struggling here. I know, deep down, I am a more useful, passionate person when I go and stand next to somebody who is doing things that gets my gears going. I’m not interested in dominating the agenda at meetings, or to be part of a committee, or trying to force people to think the same as me or the group I have attached myself to. I prefer, and I keep reminding myself this, to take the best bits of what I observe and bring it back into the spaces where so feel like I can actually do something, rather than speak about doing it. Sometimes this works, like teaching and research, and sometimes it doesn’t, in the ways I constantly have to stretch my eyes open with matchsticks and force myself to be places because I know it will be important in the longer run.

Conclusions

Anyway, eduction for the crisis really did confirm for me where I need to be on the scale, and it is out and about doing and carrying on doing stuff, and not worrying too much about the current definition of what things are or might be. It was nice, as an academic like person, to be around others who were doing amazing cross overs between art and media production (if they are one and the same) with political agendas in full scope. Challenging difficult areas and putting young people at the heart of the discussion. Not, as one participant put it, seeing young people as an emerging community that needs to be changed or transformed in understand what it is that might happen in the future. Instead working, in what ever way, to help them feel empowered to challenge that dominant idea that young people need to be schooled to think a different way, either through the system as it stands, or through some alternative system that reflects the politics of ‘the left.’

We do that through citizen media, and currently, reclamation of the olympic games as a context and a reason, but others will definitely have other methods and reasons that work for them. It doesn’t have a grand alternative narrative that can replace the current one(s), but for some people who chose to engage, it’s those tiny little stories that are worth the while. Just like the way that I type this blog post, saying what I wish I could have articulated on the day but struggled to for whatever reason, it might not seem big and important and save the planet in the end, but it’s a platform in a media saturated world that allows one to make sense of it on their own terms. For some, that is an unbelievably massive thing and that is probably what I could bring and emphasis if there is to be further discussions and meet ups of this network.

So, here is a sneak peak of my teaching brief for tomorrow, that Paul Bradshaw will hand out to the alternative media students at the start of the class (which they share with his online journalists) – they are going to do something that pulls together *everything* we have talked about and experienced through a 3rd party in the last 9 weeks. Look forward to receiving the invitation.

Welcome to Week 9

We are going to hold an event.

And you are going to plan it. And then host it after Easter.

But don’t be worried, I’ll help you.

So far, every #media2012 hub (there are 6, maybe 7 now across the country) has held an event, reflected in the style and the approaches of the partners involved – usually an educational, arts and community partner involved. Some are high profile, like the launch event in Manchester in October 2010 as part of the Abandon Normal Devices Festival, others have been low-key, but important networking opportunities, like the first meeting in the South West at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol – and some are part of larger, community events, showcasing local talent like the Citizen’s Eye Olympic-inspired launch during Community Media week 2011. Some events have budgets, budgets (and audiences) connected to the Cultural Olympiad, others have none, working with partnerships instead to provide space to debate and discuss related issues (such as the recent launch of the #citizenrelay project in Scotland, funded by Creative Scotland but part of a no-budget festival called @UWSInteractive) But they are all connected to each other through the #media2012 network, and allow important opportunities for people who would usually connect online using social media, to meet face to face and discuss the opportunities and challenges of running a citizen-media network for an event as big as the Olympic Games.

Your task this week is to research, plan and pitch an event idea that you will go on to organise over Easter and deliver in the weeks when we return. You will find a venue (using partners such as somewhereto.com or the University), invite core partners and design the content and approach to the intervention. You are the event organisers, you dictate the process. You will not have a budget, but you do have my network and contacts through other projects that are occurring as part of #media2012 – you just have to identify them.

By the end of tomorrow, I would like you to decide what you will be doing, delegate roles and responsibilities and to pitch the idea as a short youtube video that can be shared to the #media2012 network as an invitation to the West Midlands. You will also be expected to carry on with your existing roles in the group (so there is also a workshop to be delivered tomorrow and content to be found and uploaded), working to your strengths and promoting the production and the delivery of the event online. I will be available online @jennifermjones or can be called 07738865651 (between 11-1) to advise on specific points.

The video pitch/invitation needs to be uploaded to by end of tomorrow (5pm).

Tips:

• Have a look at unconference formats, here is a post to get you started.
• Think about your objectives, you are in the position where you are curating and forming a network that needs to be in place for during games time – beyond the timescale of the assignment. Who do you need to be there? Stakeholders? Potential Volunteers? Partners? Other hub members?
• Look at other projects which are part of #media2012, what are they doing and how are they doing it?
• Can you involve others from the class in return for skill sharing?
• Will your event allow for you to generate online alternative media content? This could be a good opportunity to move from attending and covering other peoples event to getting others to cover yours.
• Is there possibilities to find funding/sponsorship either internally/externally? It is always worth looking at funding streams but also pitching the importance of your event to the right people. Funding doesn’t always come directly as spending money, sometimes you can gain support through people’s time, useful partnerships and collaboration. Can you provide a platform for others in return for getting the tea and coffee paid for?

Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

After the classroom restructuring in the previous session, this week was used to define the #media2012 west midlands brief for the remaining alternative media and web production (AM and WP) students to take them through the processes to complete their final 100 percent portfolio task due in May.

The brief

The AM&WP cohort will now be working together as a group (rather than part of an online journalism investigation) and will form the basis of the #media2012 west midlands hub for during the Olympics and Paralympic Games.

In this task, each member of the group is given a title and expected to define a role based on the existing roles used in the previous investigations and linked to the core themes of alternative media production. They will develop a web presence and strategy to curate, cover and amplify Olympic and Paralympic related events in the West Midlands.

Expected roles include the Editor, Researcher, Web Developer, #media2012 network coordinator, events and community manager and training and development officer. The students are expected to define the expectations of the role and to negotiate a position with myself (who will be their academic mentor, rather than lecturer) about how they will fulfil these expectations over the coming weeks.

They will work as a team to construct a plan for the west midlands hub, identifying communities, networks and events that they can connect to now, beyond and during the games time, whilst signing up community reporters and facilitating training and workshops in alternative media and web production, allowing for the curation of a sustaining citizen-led news wire during the London 2012 olympiad.

Academic mentor: wills and wonts

This brief will inform the last assignment before the students begin in their final year, so it is expected that it will be student-led, rather than tutor-led in its approach. This does not mean I will be absent, far from it, but below I’ve outlined my own expectations for the activity.

What I will do:

• Mentoring around the mega events and media activist context
• Provide support and administration access to all the national #media2012 online assets.
• Where possible, connect the group to individuals and groups who I have personally encountered through my own research or as the #media2012 national coordinator.
• Encourage and facilitate ‘events based learning’ – supporting students to attend events as #media2012 reporters in person, capturing and producing content throughout.
• Implementing their strategy and findings during games time, seeking support to encourage them to take the project beyond the classroom.
• Where possible, be available and accessible online.

What I will not do:

• Prompt or chase up work, this will be treated like a professional working brief (because it is, #media2012 is a legitimate organisation that requires organisation and support in the West Midlands)
• Provide information that can be found through research or enquiry.
• “spoon-feed”

The Online Journalism context.

The AM&WP module is still embedded within the larger Online Journalism cohort, completing a different assignments and focusing on alternative perspectives. Just because they are not integrated with the the OJs in their investigation/brief groups for this section of the module, there is a subsequent aim embedded within mine and their roles.

I will be mentoring two groups of online journalists who are working on Olympic related investigations; Cultural Olympiad and corporate sponsorship. Additionally, I will be providing support where I can for the remaining groups who are working on issues such as student prostitution, G4S and the mayoral elections in Birmingham.

In turn, my students will be access the remaining workshop streams relating to their new roles (such as community managers, network journalists and the editor roles) – as well as being expected to work closely with the Olympic groups to knowledge/resource share and to promote relevant content on their networks.

Finally, with the focus across both modules to attend events and to gather expert interviews and supporting multimedia content, we will be encouraging students to collaborate across investigations, if it means that AM&WP students can gain more experience in multimedia production by supporting journalists on location or using investigative skills to ask better interview questions for the #media2012 brief.

Next week

Like the activism project week last year, I will setting the group a self-directed task to be carried out over the 3 hours and to be completed over 8 hours of directed study time. I will not be present in class, following a similar structure that Jon Hickman has spoken about in his blog from earlier in the semester, where sometimes leaving the room is the best way to teach, ask Stuart Hepburn and his recent hack-day approach.

• Are West Midland Universities really doing enough to prevent student’s dropping out?
• Student Loan Black Hole: Who’s to blame?
• “Universities in the West Midlands are currently deciding to cut staff expenditure rather than course delivery costs, our investigation shows“
• Sponsor deals and your career
• Higher education opportunities: are we aware?
• (A 6th investigation into the Olympic legacy was submitted digitally but not published online)

After a directed study week where there were no classes, and the online journalists had to submit an assignment snapshot (AM&WP didn’t) the groups were reshuffled and given new editors (based on our observations and recommendation) and there was an ‘golden bunnies’ award ceremony for the class to showcase and peer-review the best work -which Paul blogs about here around morale and momentum. The groups were then divided up by role and we (Paul, Caroline and myself) took them away to discuss next steps in terms of investigation, new groups and new roles.

The thing is… it just wasn’t working for the AM&WP students. I have a grand total of 7 – and only 4 were present, meaning that anything that I deliver specifically to them, has to be repeated to nearly half of the cohort if and when they do attend class. It isn’t fair on those who are consistent in work and attendance – and it’s not fair to assume that what they do is the same as the online journalists, despite being part of the class giving them additional skills, context and briefs to work around that would be be possible in a classroom of 7 students on their own.

At the same time, I was given an opportunity through #media2012 and other networks through contacts such as Matt Lee from BBC West Midlands to allow a team of students to attend a local cultural olympiad event that same morning. I could have decided to remove the AM&WP students from the rest of the group and return to traditional format of lectures and workshops, using the reshuffle as an excuse to return them to normal in order to complete the class – or I could have used the flexibility that the format affords the space (being a working newsroom after all) to embed the students in their own project, working together as AM&WP students but still within and together with the OJ students in their roles. The event gave me a kernel of an idea – and space to come up with a solution that didn’t involve the AM&WP students getting stuck or pushed into the technical-only roles that they were encountering in the first half of the module. Furthermore, there is no excuse for any online journalist to not try out that role as a web developer and multimedia producer as it is as much as core skill for the trade as any other that they are being exposed to for the this first on this course.

Events-based learning

After identifying two OJ and two AM&WP students who were able to cover the launch of the West Midlands Cultural Olympiad Festival 2012 launch, I contacted the press officer on their behalf and managed to get them in as student journalists, simply to observe the event. I briefed them with details of what the cultural olympiad is and what the launch might entail, but also linked it to #media2012, a citizen media news environment where the content and curation may lead to the first citizen journalism legacy project of an Olympic Games.

I’ve already presented this heavily in class (this year and last), using powerpoints and other exercises to explain the alternative media context in this light. But actually, it is almost impossible to convey how powerful it can be until you attend your first event under the guise of a community/alternative media organisation. It is mainly to do with confidence, it can feel intimidating if you are trying to think like a journalist without an organisation or a title behind you (same as academia really) so #media2012, the organisation, can provide a identity and a purpose for writing/documenting/working towards.

For instance, I was told on the phone that it would be nearly impossible for the students to interview the main speaker, Jonathan Edwards, because of time restrictions on media access. Then this happened…

From a tweet late the night before, to getting students into an event, to capturing interviews and media content for the web in a way that I could have never imagined ever getting access too. After Vancouver, I learn that it was often not worth chasing the sport and the athletes because that’s where access was hard, but through the cultural olympiad, there is space to widen the cracks and ask different questions that often the mainstream, ‘employed’ journalists aren’t able to. This is equally important as one of the new investigations that the OJs will be leading on is around following the money associated with the Cultural Olympiad, with a mentor from Arts Professional magazine. There is every chance that the students could produce important findings around impact and legacy that are not currently being discussed thoroughly by the mainstream media.

For me, this has became a real break-through in blending practice with theory – especially when topics such as the cultural olympiad and the arts council can seem incredibly complex to anybody outside of the spaces that it works within.

Next Steps

Student-led curriculum?

Last time I blogged about the student-led curriculum, and as I know there is at least one AM&WP student who wants the opportunity to build teaching experience, I will let them lead on preparing workshops around the technical aspects of the multimedia production. The problem is trust and reliability, not ability, and unless that I can trust that those sessions are going to happen, I can’t accept that they are going to happen, so will also have to prepare my own sessions of this nature. You can lead a student to become a producer, but you can’t make them produce.  Especially when you are constantly fighting the tide of consumer-demands.

#media2012 West Midlands as an Alternative Media project

The AM&WP students will not be part of any current investigation being held by that OJ students. Instead they will be working as a group, bringing together the knowledge and information that they learned from the first 6 weeks as working as a newsroom team to manage, produce content and attend and cover events on behalf of #media2012. They will essentially become the West Midlands hub for #media2012 and by the end of the module, should be produced a complete events guide for the area, attended and live blogged as many Olympic and Paralympic related events and interventions (both official and ‘unofficial’) as #media2012 citizen journalists and helped contribute to the website and multimedia productions for youtube, podcasts and liveblogging.

They will also liase with the other groups who are working on Olympic related investigations and work to push their findings and reports to wider audiences through the #media2012 and connected networks. They will need to get to grips with the #media2012 charter and understand the connected arts, education and community based organisations who are partnered in the scheme, as well as making attempts to formulate a strategy for the summer to ensure that there is a network of individuals/volunteers who will connect to the West Midlands hub once the module ends and the assignments are in. This could include visiting local community groups to offer training and support in using alternative media – or it could be to arrange a build a sustainable newsroom for the time during the Olympics.

This connects to the projects that were delivered by last year’s AM&WP students through #mc539, but also to the first year Olympic production event that is happening on the 10th of May. They will need to work hard to turn this kernel into a viable alternative media and web based project, that already has a history and a network, but its up to them how they take that forward as a opportunity to build on.

]]> http://jennifermjones.net/2012/03/18/project-stories-and-streams-week-7-events-based-learning-the-west-midlands-media2012-hub/feed/ 2 http://jennifermjones.net/2012/03/15/publication-the-imaginary-sxswiif-sxswi-is-a-dream-then-how-do-we-wake-up-from-it/ http://jennifermjones.net/2012/03/15/publication-the-imaginary-sxswiif-sxswi-is-a-dream-then-how-do-we-wake-up-from-it/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:51:00 +0000 Jennifer Jones http://jennifermjones.net/?p=1747 An article that I coauthored with my colleague Jon Hickman from BCU has been published in the special edition of FlowTV journal for SXSWi. FlowTV is a critical forum on television and media culture published by the Department of Radio, Television, and Film at the University of Texas at Austin. Flow’s mission is to provide a space where the public can discuss the changing landscape of contemporary media.

The article itself is a critique of the perceived value of UK participants citing proxy attendance of mega-events as a reason for public funding – that is, when individual’s argue that personal attendance at a trade fair is beneficial and can be shared later as a source of ‘public good’ to a wider audience, even when all media content is available for free and online during the event.

The full article is available here.

This was the first time since UWS was formed has their been a series of connected events to occur across all areas of the university’s catchment area and now having driven the entire distance between them in one week, you can really see and feel the size of the area that UWS covers as a ‘local’ university.

Below is the round up of each day of the festival, based on the tweets, images and videos from participants and partners and hosted using Storify.

Day 1: Social Media for Community Engagement, The Cat Strand (New Galloway)

We started the week in Dumfries and Galloway, where we have a campus based in Dumfries. The first day was formed from a previous public engagement project that was funded by the South of Scotland Business Solutions and aims to support local independent businesses in the South of Scotland.

Working with an existing community network that we has encountered during the first part of the SoSBS project in November (social media surgeries for small businesses), we met with the Glenkens Community and Arts Trust and hosted a community news cafe, workshops on community engagement and an afternoon of idea generating for the final section of the project, towards community education programs provided by UWS.

The archive from day 1 is here.

Day 2: Launch of #citizenrelay -from 2012 to 2014 in media and mega events. (Hamilton)

Tuesday brought us to Hamilton Campus, that specialises in events and journalism and to the launch of the #citizenrelay project, part of #media2012 network and aims to follow the torch relay across Scotland, covering the alternative stories of the event. There was plenty of free workshops and stands set up with our visiting partners and UWS students covered the event as part of their coursework.

The archive from the launch is here.

Day 3: Social Media Surgeries, Film Making and Screen Acting @UWSAyr

The new Ayr campus was officially opened just before Christmas and hosts some excellent film making and screen facilities, as well as having an amazing central atrium that is acts as a meeting space for both UWS and Scottish Agricultural College students. There were workshops from citizen’s eye, somewhereto_ and the library, careers and student support – as well as contemporary screen acting students producing a play in under 6 hours. The event concluded with a teachmeet and a dogwoof documentary pop up cinema screening of Blood in the Mobile.

The archive from day 3 is available here.

Day 4: Launching @UWSInteractive Social Media Alliance, @UWSPaisley

The week concluded with a social media roadshow in the library learning space on the Paisley campus. This formed the basis of the next steps for UWS Interactive, moving it from a one-off week long festival to a longer, more relentless project centred around social media for learning and teaching, support, research and external activities – beginning with those who took part this week, with the aim to grow support and training over the next few months.

The final archive is available here.

Next Steps:

I’ve converted the UWSInteractive festival website from a schedule to a wider resource, where over the next few weeks I am going to profile UWS staff and students who are using social media in their day to day work practice – as well as connecting to our external partners who can offer mentoring and support in this area. It is hoped that @UWSInteractive, the event, will have given people enough energy and confidence to take forward a more coherent and connected support network or as I’ve started calling it, the UWS Social Media Alliance. Stay tuned.

(In terms of accessibility, I would like to transcribe the interview at a later date.)