Posts Tagged ‘conference’

Future Learningscapes: Post-conference Draft

Friday, August 20th, 2010

This post presents a preliminary draft for a paper I am co-authoring with LeRoy Hill and Tracy Sisson. As some of you will know from previous posts, early this year LeRoy and I designed and presented a series of social media sessions for PhD students and Early Career Researchers at the Jubilee Graduate Centre with the cooperation and support of Tracy, the centre manager. In June, we presented this as a case study of a student-led training initiative, at the Future Learningscapes e-learning conference at the University of Greenwich, and we are accepting their offer to write up the presentation for their post-conference publication next year.

They are keen we incorporate reflections on our experiences from presenting at the conference and feedback from attendees. We also decided it would be appropriate to partly conduct the co-authorship process in the participatory arena of the social web. Therefore both LeRoy and I are presenting our personal perspectives through our own sites. You can read my draft on my wiki and download it here.

I would be happy to receive feedback on this from conference attendees or students who came to the original sessions, though comments and suggestions from anyone else would be greatly appreciated.

Future Learningscapes

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

In what looks like an excellent programme of presentations from researchers, technologists and educators, led by keynote Gráinne Conole from the Open University, LeRoy Hill and I will be presenting our Graduate training sessions in social media as a case study at the Future Learningscapes conference on July 7th at the University of Greenwich. Our Abstract is as follows:

The effective use of social and participative media is seen as a key requirement in 21st Century academic practice and professional development. This case study describes a collaborative, student-led initiative which, identifying a gap in existing Doctoral training provision, engaged in delivering a series of interactive sessions to PhD students and Early Career Researchers at the University of Nottingham. With an emphasis less on the technologies and more on their social, participatory and collaborative affordances, the sessions were designed and presented by two PhD students to raise awareness of social media and provide an opportunity for discussion and shared practice. Hosted and supported by one of the University Graduate Centres, the sessions were supplemented by an online resource. In this presentation, we will summarise the initiative with key observations, perspectives and feedback from the organisers and attendees, discuss implications for practice within training and professional development contexts, and outline future plans in this area.

The Student Voice

Friday, December 4th, 2009
This coming Monday, I’m presenting a symposium with Odessa Dariel (and on behalf of absent Claire Mann), at the SRHE Postgraduate and Newer Researchers Conference at Celtic Manor, Newport.
The presentations will address our ongoing work as student interns with the Visual Learning Lab (VLL). Student interns have played an integral role in VLL activities since June 2008, working with Schools across the University of Nottingham to deliver workshops and provide training and support for both staff and students in new learning technologies and related pedagogies. Our role was recognised as offering a unique position with which to undertake research that promotes the development of the ‘student voice.’
We recently conducted a series of focus groups in a number of Schools across the University asking undergraduate students about their learning experiences. In the last few weeks we have started delivering the key findings to teaching staff in participating Schools in a number of participatory workshops based around a video we made. We are looking to extend this to PGCHE and MA (Ed.) students in the New Year.
We have adopted the Participation Action Research (PAR) model as a broad methodology for the project. PAR is a research method built on progressive ‘action-refection’ cycles enabling ongoing communication and collaboration between researchers, students and tutors.
We hope to replicate the video workshop in the final part of our symposium, and as such the conference will itself constitute a further strand of our own reflective practice.

This coming Monday, I’m presenting a symposium with Odessa Dariel (and on behalf of Claire Mann), at the SRHE Postgraduate and Newer Researchers Conference at Celtic Manor, Newport.

The presentations will address our ongoing work as student interns with the Visual Learning Lab (VLL). Student interns have played an integral role in VLL activities since June 2008, promoting visual learning across the University of Nottingham, providing support for both staff and students in new learning technologies and related pedagogies. Our role was recognised as offering a unique position with which to undertake research that promotes the development of the ‘student voice.’

We recently conducted a series of focus groups in a number of Schools across the University asking undergraduate students about their learning experiences. In the last few weeks we have started delivering the key findings to teaching staff in participating Schools through interactive workshops based around a video we produced. We are looking to extend this to PGCHE and MA (Ed.) students in the New Year.

We have adopted a Participation Action Research (PAR) model as a broad methodology for the project, with progressive ‘action-refection’ cycles enabling ongoing communication and collaboration between researchers, students and tutors.

We hope to replicate the video workshop in the final part of our symposium, and as such the conference will itself constitute a further strand of our own reflective practice.

Visual Methods Conference

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

The First International Visual Methods Conference is to be held at the University of Leeds on the 15th-17th September 2009. Proposed themes include:

  • Participatory Visual Methods
  • Researcher Created Data
  • Visual Methods and Research Design
  • Arts-based and Creative Visual Research Methods
  • Visual Representation
  • Visual Ethics