Physical making in our virtual castles - Can Hybrid thinking in making and production stimulate a more collaborative approach to our curricula?
Description
The session will revolve around teams of 6 to 8 participants responding collaboratively to one of four basic themes (Hand, Heart, Eye, Head) using whatever tools, approaches or disciplines they wish. The selected tool set and mid session provocation have been carefully designed to compel teams to co-ordinate their approach and reach consensus on an outcome through collaborative research and negotiated decision making. The first half of the session will produce a documented record of discussion, connection and shared ideas development. The second half will provide participants with the opportunity to begin afresh in imagining a creative outcome, and executing a response based on interpretation. A core aim is to disrupt the perception of the final outcome as the artifact of most value. In my role as senior lecturer in Art and Design I have for a number of years been energetic in building creative learning environments which devolve traditional power structures and allow collaborative iteration and collective problem solving to extend into the production of creative outcomes. My proposed session would place traditional storytelling at the start of a collaborative journey incorporating initial research teams, rapid iteration and the negotiated production of a shared response. As the Faculty Lead for digital learning and delivery I have been particularly energetic over the past five months in developing collaborative spaces which allow the blending of traditional and digital practice using a range of virtual tools and platforms. (Collaborate, Padlet and Nearpod) I am also expert in leveraging pervasive tools such as low cost webcams and smart phones to prompt active sharing of practice and ideas.
This session will be highly active - with participants facilitated in producing and recording a range of outputs collectively. The ideas development task will encourage participants to bring an aspect of their own experience to the group - be that creative or cultural. The four themes have been chosen to provide a starting point that is inclusive, open to interpretation and easily aligned to a collaborative shared collage/drawing or layered artwork.
Timetable
00:00– 00:15 The session will open with a brief introduction and discussion. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on and discuss the idea of collaborative research and negotiated outcomes in terms of their perceived value to individual students. Individual comments and questions will be encouraged, but all participants will also have the opportunity to document their thoughts through a shared Nearpod Collaborate board. The creative brief will be set, and all participants will have the opportunity to investigate recording and documentation tools in Padlet through a demonstration and practice session aligned to the creative brief.
00:15 – 00:30 The main workshop task is the production of a collaborative response to one of four themes. (Head, Heart, Hand, Eye) The group will be divided and allocated a theme. The session will then move to breakout rooms, where participants will be encouraged to record ideas, negotiate responses and conduct research - using the shared padlet as a collaborative space. They will be encouraged to use a range of approaches. (Audio, Video, traditional and digital mark-making, photography and text.)
00:30 – 00:45 Participants will be bought back into the main virtual space and will be randomly allocated the documented response from another group. They will then have 20 minutes to produce a single shared response to this new set of ideas - using either the collaborate whiteboard or a shared Padlet canvas.
00:45 – 01:00 Negotiated outcomes shared, and a brief discussion on the experience will follow – framed by some of the recorded comments from the start of the session.
Interaction
The initial discussion in Nearpod will offer an anonymous and democratic space to comment, question and respond. Participants will work in groups of 6-8 people on a shared creative goal, and will respond collectively to the mid-session provocation. The Research Task (Padlet 1) will be designed to encourage groups to discuss and negotiate a creative direction as they produce initial responses to the brief.
The Making task (Padlet 2 or interactive whiteboard) has been refined to prompt real and organic discussion as the parameters of the task are explored and the production approach is identified and refined.
I am a highly experienced online workshop facilitator, and having spent the summer to date mentoring and training colleagues in online delivery I am an expert in prompting discussion and easing people into engagement and participation using Blackboard Collaborate. I am a relaxed and natural presenter, and I have had extensive experience in managing innovative and agile creative activity using both Nearpod and Padlet.
Takeaway
1) Each participant will be able to leave with a digital artifact offering a comprehensive overview of the tools and creative approaches used in the session, with examples of how similar approaches were developed by Art and Design students and staff in my University. 2) The artifacts created in the session will also be packaged and made available after the session. 3) A core focus for the session will be discussion and negotiation. A key aim is to provide opportunities for participants to explore the conference themes through making, drawing and digital production.
Beyond the teaching and learning aspects of the session I am keen to share my practical experience and technical knowledge with colleagues, and to learn from their experiences and discoveries. My digital home studio is exceptionally well set up - with a very high quality webcam, professional backdrop, audio capture set up and lighting. I am an active and interdisciplinary creative practitioner, equally comfortable in facilitating traditional drawing activity, moving image and audio forms, and digital production modes.
Outcomes
1) I aim to present the outcomes from my session to colleagues in my University. I am a member of a number of steering groups and digital learning communities, and the outputs, discussion points and conclusions from this session would be of immense interest to colleagues (academics and learning technologists) 2) I will be working closely with an undergraduate research group of students from a range of disciplines this year, and I hope to mentor them in developing proposals and papers on their experience of virtual/online learning and the development of digital communities of practice within their subject disciplines (Fine Art, Interior Design, Illustration and Fashion and Textiles) This session has been designed to feed in to a broader research project and is the first step in articulating an aspect of my own research which I have been developing through my own practice – 3) As academic lead for digital learning in the Faculty I am keen to connect with the wider community of creative educators to share practice, compare approaches and interrogate areas of discomfort or tension for students when navigating Art and Design curricula. 4) As an energetic and engaged teacher I would highly value the opportunity to share my expertise and experience to such a diverse and receptive
Abstract
Abstract - How can creative digital collectives positively disrupt long established and culturally embedded notions of the creative studio and expectations around the notion of the auteur? Central to the teaching of Art and Design is that it is practice led – which can contribute to the perception that it is subsequently “studio bound”. This idea, in tandem with the traditional studio model in many Universities has endured, as has the expectation of individual response and highly personalised outputs. Any creative educator who has sustained a career as a freelance practitioner will recognise the need to prepare students to be agile exploiters of collaborative opportunity. However, while creative learning environments become increasingly enhanced and connected through digital and virtual technology, genuinely collaborative production is difficult terrain to negotiate in the face of discipline expectations and the perception of specific industry culture. The notion of introducing Hybridity in live creative making/production arcs is a compelling one, particularly in the face of the Covid 19 crisis. The shift to online modes has led to a growing confidence in the use of agile device and platform agnostic digital learning tools. (Such as Padlet, Mentimeter and Blackboard Collaborate) Simultaneously, a limited access to the physical spaces inhabited by student collectives has stimulated a hybrid creative discourse in Art and Design curricula through a re-imagining of curricula to fit the requirements of our virtual estates. The rapid shift from physical to virtual has pulled focus somewhat from the pervasive notion of the individual outcome and allowed temporary space for a re-imagining of collaborative thinking and rapid iteration. My aim for this session is to positively disrupt the notion of the practitioner as auteur, and to investigate the impact of a hybrid creative arc on collaborative negotiation and production. It is my belief that blending traditional, digital and virtual modes will allow student communities and collectives to see beyond the allure of the personalised response and individually controlled creative outcomes.
In my role as senior lecturer in Art and Design I have for a number of years been energetic in building creative learning environments which devolve traditional power structures and allow collaborative iteration and collective problem solving to extend into the production of creative outcomes. My proposed session would place traditional storytelling at the start of a collaborative journey incorporating initial research teams, rapid iteration and the negotiated production of a shared response. As the Faculty Lead for digital pedagogies I have been particularly energetic over the past five months in developing collaborative spaces which allow the blending of traditional and digital practice using a range of virtual tools and platforms. (Collaborate, Padlet and Nearpod) I am also expert in leveraging pervasive tools such as low cost webcams and smart phones to prompt active sharing of practice and ideas.