Week 9: I’m not going to class tomorrow, and I’m the teacher…
I’m in Scotland at the moment for other-work-related things. Which means I can’t be in class for teaching commitments tomorrow. But taking a page out of the Jon Hickman school of teaching, I am not going to be around either. Which should be bad, I should arrange something for the 2nd years in the same way I am for the 1st years, who are getting one of those online classroom discussions via our VLE, moodle. All the technological sophistication of a chatroom in the early 1990s. But that’s e-learning for you. But it’s 10.50pm on a Monday night (at the …
Project: Stories and Streams, Week 7: Events-based learning: the west midlands #media2012 hub
When I started working on the Alternative Media and Web Production (AM&WP) module late-2010, it was with the intention of working towards embedding citizen journalism and the Olympic Games as a priority topic and theme for the module. It begin with #mc539, which then evolved into #MED5008, a course within another – online journalism. The first 6 weeks, my AM&WP students worked within groups of online journalists as multimedia producers that supported the ongoing investigations around the Olympics or Education areas. The first investigations were as follows: Are West Midland Universities really doing enough to prevent student’s dropping out? Student …
Project: Stories and Streams, week 5. “The module is not what I expected.”
A couple of days ago, I reflected on the move towards a student -led curriculum on the alternative media and web production course that I am running at BCU. Since the change of class structure this year to a ‘stories and streams’ format, some of the common issues that I have faced has been questions relating to the expectations of what the module might look like – and importantly, what it might cover. I’ve skirted around the issues in a few of the previous posts, but I think today was a real break through in terms of how I take …
Project: Stories and Streams, Week 3 – Incorporating Feedback, (27-4) Support & Learning Outcomes.
For more context and posts on the Stories and Streamsproject, check out the website. Today’s class was the first week that it felt that the majority of the students had a clear understanding of their role in the group and how they are working as a class as a whole, with most of them having already published aspects of their investigation online, using a content management system and linking to distribution social media accounts (albeit a personal or investigation specific twitter or Facebook account) There are three points of interest that have emerged on reflection of today: Feedback and Evolving …
Why Social Media Surgeries Work… @UWSDigital #uwsltas
Social Media Surgeries in Melrose on Flickr Last week we completed the final set of social media surgeries, the first half of the project that I’ve been part of in the south of Scotland. So far I’ve made 6 round trips (and about to make the 7th) to Scotland in 6 weeks (a new record even for me), equating to over 4000 miles on the project alone (not including the ad-hoc trips to London and Manchester in between). Of course, part of this is my doing, living in Loughborough and working in Birmingham one day a week – it could …
Hacking Contemporary Screen Acting: Pedagogy of “doing stuff” #uwsltas
This is the second year that Stuart Hepburn has asked me to guest lecture as part of his Contemporary Screen Acting (CSA) degree at University of the West of Scotland. CSA is different from say, a general acting qualification, because it asks the students to see beyond simply doing a vocational course in becoming an actor. It is designed by Stuart, to provide a well-round introduction to media production industry, whilst empowering students to take control of their own careers, rather than assuming that a degree in acting is enough, they learn how to put themselves out there. They do this by learning the …