Look on the News page for teaching and learning news from the UK art, design and media higher education sector, including events, calls for papers, funding opportunities and more. See the About us page for information on how to share your news on this blog.

Friday 20 April 2012

FROM THE ARCHIVE - Beyond the Beanbag?

Beyond the Beanbag? Towards new ways of thinking about learning spaces
Jos Boys, University of Brighton

This article, published in 2009, looks critically at some of the assumptions in ideas about learning spaces, especially the arguments in favour of a shift from formal to informal learning spaces. It suggests that the formal/informal divide hides more than it reveals about the complex relationships between learning and the spaces in which it takes place; and that learning spaces in postcompulsory education remains an under-theorised and under-researched area. 


Published in Autumn 2009: Networks, Issue 8, pp. 16-19. 

EVENT - Ceramics and Sculpture: Different Disciplines and Shared Concerns

Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Cardiff
5 July 2012

Relationships between ceramics and sculpture are a focus for research at Cardiff School of Art and Design. This research has demonstrated that the interests of studio ceramicists and sculptors in Britain either overlapped or came into particularly sharp focus at certain periods during the last century or so. The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, has in the last few years awarded research fellowships to explore such relationships and one outcome was the exhibition A Rough Equivalent, curated by Dr Jeffrey Jones in 2010 . Both ceramics and sculpture now have to make a case for their survival as discrete disciplines within higher education and, increasingly within the arts, categories are blurred. Recently an issue of Interpreting Ceramics was devoted to interdisciplinary approaches in American ceramics and the 2012 issue of the journal will address relationships between ceramics and sculpture.

Against this background the conference seeks to illuminate shared concerns by examining points of formal, conceptual, theoretical and material convergences between the two disciplines, while also addressing key points of difference. 

The conference is an initiative of Cardiff School of Art and Design (Cardiff Metropolitan University, UWIC) and Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Collaborative partners are Interpreting Ceramics; Welsh Institute for Research in Art and Design (WIRAD); National Centre for Ceramics in Wales.

http://cardiff-school-of-art-and-design.org/conference2012/

NEWS – new DreamLab collaborative project

What will the future hold for one of the most basic and universal of human activities - the act of eating? Kingston University is delighted to announce an exciting new collaborative and cross-cultural project with partner universities across China. The project, which asks interdisciplinary teams from over 40 leading Chinese universities to respond creatively to the theme of the Future of Eating, is part of a family of projects under the umbrella title 'DreamLab' that make use of bespoke online resources to forge new ways of working and learning online. 

Kingston's 2009 project on the theme of Sleeping and Dreaming matched online collaboration with cross-cultural relationship building. This first incarnation of DreamLab, undertaken in partnership with two UK museums (the Design Museum and Science Museum), two UK universities (Kingston and Bournemouth), and 25 Chinese universities, provided an overarching experience in delivering complex networked collaborations and in utilising the unique opportunities of industry and institutional partnerships. In addition to fostering cultural relationships and encouraging students to think beyond boundaries to answer a challenging and topical subject -- one that affects all of us -- the project aims to encourage the development of practical skills. The brief and live competition helps students prepare for a real-life situation common to the creative industries and fosters new uses of online platforms for creative development and networking.

Launching in May with a final live event in November, The Future of Eating will be jointly delivered by project partners Professor Catherine McDermott, course director of Kingston's MA in Curating Contemporary Design, Professor Edith Sim and Dr Mark Preece in the Kingston University Faculty of Science, with additional external partners, Professor Anthony Dunne (RCA) and Tim Molloy (Science Museum). A public-facing blog tracing project development will launch in July with a series of spin off events and projects on this theme in planning at partner venues.

For more information contact:
Professor Catherine McDermott
Course Director, MA Curating Contemporary Design
Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture
Kingston University London


NB Connecting Contemporary Designers: a study in piloting e-learning through collaborative online creative practice across UK and Korea, a project funded by ADM-HEA and led by Catherine McDermott, relates to DreamLab and will be published in Networks issue 17.

GENERAL NEWS - from HE

EVENT - Transforming e-assessment for Learning: Developing an institution wide scaffold
Middlesex University (Hendon Campus), London
1 May 2012

The aim of the workshop, part of the Higher Education Academy's Workshop and Seminar Series, is to discuss the lessons learned from the institution wide approach to e-assessment currently adopted by Middlesex University.
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EVENT - Supporting Academic Practice in a Digital Age
The Forum, University of Exeter
17 May 2012
   
This event, hosted by the Exeter Cascade project and the Academic Skills Development team at the University of Exeter, will bring together digital literacy experts, academic advisers, teaching staff and students to explore the impact of digital methods on academic practice. There will be opportunities to share ideas and advance our understanding, as well as examine practice more closely in workshop sessions.
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Supporting and developing the curriculum by putting contemplation back into HE: enhancing students’ attention and effectiveness
Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
25 May 2012

Contemporary Higher Education is under increasing pressure to justify its existence, be cost effective and produce better graduates. One attempt to achieve this has been the formulation of graduate attributes (GAs). These are attributes that graduates are expected to develop during their studies, in addition to the knowledge and skills relevant to their discipline. Over the last 10 years, there has been a rapid increase in interest in the use of Contemplative Pedagogies (CPs) in HE to enhance learning and teaching. The focus of this event is the application of CPs to enhance student teachers’ ability to learn in any subject. 
For more information
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Innovative Learning: Maximising Technology, Maximising Potential
The Barbican, London
27 June 2012

This event will address the following: Developing innovative learning methods to fulfill the educational, training and skill requirements that can help contribute to economic growth and prosperity; The European Commission's report The Future of Learning: Preparing for Change aims to identify, understand and visualise major changes to learning in the future; the role of e-learning and technology to deliver innovative and alternative learning techniques; Consider how improving accessibility to resources will also improve learning outcomes and results.
For more information

Thursday 19 April 2012

NEWS - Media History Journal – Graduate Student Essay Prize

Media History, the Routledge journal, is pleased to announce the annual Media History Graduate Student Essay Prize.

Deadline for submissions: 31 December 2012 

Media History seek to encourage new and innovative scholarship in the field ‘media history’, broadly defined, and have established this prize to highlight the best new work in the field undertaken by current graduate students.

They welcome submissions of 6000-7000 words in length that address questions related to media history in all periods and that cross or challenge disciplinary boundaries, including history, literary and cultural studies, politics, communication studies, economics.

The winner will receive £750 in addition to publication in  Media History and free access to the journal online for one year. Two runners-up will receive free access to the journal online for one year.

For more information http://bit.ly/mh-prize

CALL - for papers for Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education

Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education, first published by Intellect in 2002, strives to develop research in arts and media based subjects in educational institutions. The range of this refereed journal encompasses all areas of higher education: the focus is placed upon practice-based education in fine art, as well as theoretical evaluations of subjects such as media studies, cultural studies, and the history of art and design. In its commitment to the expansion of learning and teaching methods through research, the journal offers detailed accounts of specific research projects. By using the findings of these enquiries, contributors reveal the potential value of new educational strategies, and stimulate the advancement of creative teaching methods.

Alongside these practical approaches, contributors also develop a critical platform for the study of teaching in the arts and media sector. In order to assimilate these theories in a real environment, the contributions query the context in which educational strategies are practiced. The journal examines the correlation between the success of practiced techniques, in relation to both the type of institution and the genre of study. Articles are gathered from an extensive community of researchers, allowing the journal to provide a comprehensive profile of education research in art, design and communication studies.

The research field of Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education includes:
All areas of Higher Education, including the fields of:
  • Practice based education in fine art, design and media
  • Theoretical studies including cultural studies, art and design history and media studies.
All aspects of learning and teaching in art, design and communication including:
  • Research underpinned evaluations of curriculum
  • Student learning
  • Approaches to teaching
  • Teacher and educational development
This peer-reviewed journal is published three times a year. There are no deadlines, the journal has an open submissions policy.


Volume 9 | Issue 1, the current issue, is available for free from the link above.

Wednesday 18 April 2012

CALL - for papers for Visual Inquiry: Learning & Teaching Art Journal

The mission of Visual Inquiry: Learning & Teaching Art, published by Intellect,  is to provide a forum for engaging the complex, rich and multifaceted process of learning and teaching art.

Published three times a year and peer reviewed, the print-based journal launched its first publication in 2011. The journal highlights the process of creating art, teaching as an art form, engaging art submissions, scholarship in teaching artistry, and the rich traditions of art making and teaching. The call for papers is open to anyone concerned with issues related to learning and teaching art.
The journal seeks a serious yet experimental approach to publication that values the myriad of visual art processes in contemporary culture. Readable to the outsider yet encouraging and challenging to the experienced artist-teacher, the journal will fill a niche in art and art education with a breadth and enthusiasm missing in contemporary art and art education journals.
The journal seeks articles, reflections on artwork, interviews, original artwork and book/exhibition reviews that address one or more of the following themes:
  • Art appreciation
  • Learning and teaching in museums
  • Teaching artistry
  • The role of creativity in learning and teaching
  • History of art education
  • Art-based research
  • Teaching art in primary school to higher education and beyond
  • The relationship between art making and teaching
  • Art addressing teaching and learning
  • Philosophy of teaching and learning art
  • Aesthetic education
  • Design education
  • Learning from art
  • The voice of artist-teachers
  • Teaching art outside school walls
  • Analysis of teaching and learning art experiences
There are no deadlines, the journal has an open submissions policy.

For more information

Volume 1| Issue 1, the current issue, is available for free from the link above.

EVENT - The Art of Print

University of Wolverhampton, England
1 May 2012
                        



'The Art of Print' is the first in a series of discussions by artists, writers and curators working with contemporary photography, devised by the University of Wolverhampton as part of wlvfotofest.

Individual artistic goals and experimentation used to be the basic goals of residency programmes within student and artists practice. Now with the emerging concern for mapping the creative process and responding to the idea of a convincing methodology for supporting knowledge development in this key discipline, we are able to engage in a conversation which is now global in nature offering us a platform for sharing theoretical and practical knowledge around the idea of residencies and artist led projects.

This series will be designed to respond and engage with the European ‘Re –Tooling Residencies - a closer look at the mobility of art professionals’, publication and website 2009-2011.

‘The Art of the Print’ comes from the development of new understandings of artistic practice and presentation of visual forms with exhibition value, including the projected image and the notion of the image as spectacle included now in scenography practice and performance. This timely publication and website offers a chance to share the research to date and respond to the call to develop a methodology for the effective analysis of the creative and social processes related to such mobility in a global perspective. Contemporary photography practice now considers this notion of re-location and the consequences that may be revealed while mapping national, transnational and/or global flows of labour, conflict and co –operation.

The ideas of documentary and interactive documentary practice are ongoing within photography education and its discourse with online projects becoming the norm for cultural sites of exchange. The implications for teaching and learning are the challenges for the teaching of practice that as stated has much wider cultural connotations and we need to interrogate these boundaries and reflect on the ways that relocation, exchange , translation and learning through artistic practice can be evaluated in the context of the mobility of emerging art professionals.

This is part of the Higher Education Academy Discipline Workshop and Seminar Series.

http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=30184

Tuesday 17 April 2012

EVENT - Employability, the Creative Industries and the Art School: Examining relationships with the workplace

Leeds College of Art
20 April 2012
                      
This workshop, one of the Higher Education Academy Discipline Workshop and Seminar Series, will be an initial one off event intended to establish networks and relationships between educators involved in the delivery of professional practice aspects of the creative curriculum in independent art colleges. The workshop will meet the following stated aims of the HEA:
  • To facilitate the sharing of policy, practice and evidence, within disciplines across institutions.
  • To promote critical discussion in relation to enhancing the quality of the student learning experience.
The focus of the workshop will employability in the art school and will reference the results of the survey of graduate employment published in Ball L, Pollard E, Stanley N Creative Graduates Creative Futures Report 471, Council for Higher Education in Art and Design; University of the Arts London, January 2010.

The workshop will give delegates the opportunity to:
  • Become familiar with the findings in the report
  • Examine the curricula they deliver in the light of the findings
  • Identify and share good practice in the employability curriculum for art, design and media
  • Discuss potential opportunities for the development of curricula and the sharing of good practice.

EVENT - Pedagogies of Hope and Opportunity

The Higher Education Academy Arts and Humanities Annual Conference 2012
Radisson Blu Hotel, Glasgow
29 - 30 May 2012
                         
Unprecedented changes in UK higher education are placing the Arts & Humanities under particular scrutiny and pressure. Pedagogies of Hope and Opportunity is the HEA’s first annual conference dedicated solely to enhancing learning and teaching and the experience for Arts & Humanities students. Over two days and 30 parallel sessions and interactive workshops, the conference will explore the latest developments and innovations in Arts and Humanities learning and teaching.

Keynote speakers:
Professor Giovanni Schiuma, Professor in Innovation and Knowledge Management and Scientific Director of the Centre for Value Management at the Universita degli Studi della Basilicata, Italy.

Professor Linda Drew, Acting Deputy Director and Director of Academic Development, Glasgow School of Art.

Conference themes:
  • Curriculum design in arts
  • Innovations in learning and teaching
  • Technology-enhanced and e-learning
  • Assessment and feedback
  • Employability
  • Internationalisation


Student Photo Competition
The Higher Education Academy is looking for a photograph/digital image which captures how it feels to study the Arts and Humanities when studying the Arts and Humanities is at its best. All entries will be displayed at the Arts and Humanities annual conference and the student who submits the HEA's favourite image will win the choice of either a new third generation iPad 16 GB, 4G with WiFi or £450 in Book Tokens. Details of the competition are available on the main event page.

CALL – for submissions to new Film Festival

The Thurrock International Film Festival
Thameside Theatre, Grays, Essex
24 – 30 June 2012

Deadline for submissions: 1 May 2012

This may be of interest to your students.

TIFF, a new film festival, is seeking submissions; it is an open competition and there are nine categories:
  • Fiction
  • Documentary
  • Animation
  • Music Video
  • Experimental
  • Under 16
  • International
  • Foreign Language
  • Student
There will also be awards for Best Performance, Best Editing, Best Direction, Best in Festival (one of the winners of the categories) and Audience Choice.

It is £5 for a student entry (£10 for regular entries). There are trophies and professional software on offer as prizes; nominated films will also be seen by the panel of celebrity judges and industry professionals (including Jim Loach, Jason Flemyng and Brain Berdan).

Monday 16 April 2012

CALL – for papers for Social Media, Journalism and Communication Practitioners - International Symposium

Social Media, Journalism and Communication Practitioners - International Symposium
North Holmes Campus, Canterbury Christ Church University
7 September 2012

Deadline for abstracts: 15 May 2012

This event is organised by the Department of Media, Art and Design in collaboration with the Business School, Canterbury Christ Church University.

Social media, and the Internet in general, are having dramatic impacts on journalism (Deuze, 2007; Sarrica, 2010). Traditional practices of newsgathering, verifying stories and reporting are transforming and with that the profession itself is perceived to be changing fundamentally. Web 2.0 Internet technologies are viewed to have changed "newsroom culture and the professionals involved" and they "challenge perceptions of the roles and functions of journalism as a whole" (Deuze and Paulussen, 2002, p. 216). But scholars continue to debate exactly how journalism as a profession is changing and about the impacts of new technologies such as social media (Lasorsa et al., 2012). Discussion on the impacts of these technologies have centred on three main issues: changes in relationship with the audience, changing journalistic practices and changes in professional values and the profession as a whole. This international symposium explores these and related issues.

The conference is open to academics as well as industry practitioners. Papers / presentations are invited in the general subject area of social media. Suggestions include, but are not limited to:
  • Comparative study of social media use
  • Impact of social media on audience relationship
  • Changing journalistic practices
  • Purposes of social media use
  • Attitudes towards social media
  • PR professionals and social media
  • Patterns of social media usages
  • Impacts of social media on journalistic values
  • Influence of social media on communication practices
Best papers from the symposium will be published in a special edition of a refereed journal.

Please send 250 word abstracts to Agnes Gulyas agnes.gulyas@canterbury.ac.uk

NEWS – Media and Cultural Studies articles free access

Routledge have made 30 of their most cited journal articles from the past two years free to access until the end of June 2012.

They publish a broad range of Media & Cultural Studies journals, which engage with current debate in the area, including Cultural Studies, Journalism Studies, and Journal of Mass Media Ethics.