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Sharing ReGenring – with a little help from my template

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July 7, 2017
Conferences, Uncategorized
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Here the first follow-up post promised in my write up of the #ReGenring17 conference.

For the afternoon we had scheduled a ‘Sharing Session’ – essentially some time for people to just talk to each other. In order to give some broader starting points than just the keynotes, I had put out a Call for Practice as a first announcement of the conference, and quite a few people had responded to that.

The idea was that people would pick an example of their genring practice to show off, so that delegates could have a look at this. I had decided to give a structure to this by asking the sharers to fill in a very basic questionnaire about their projects to send to me the week previously, which I then fitted into a basic template. So everybody who shared their work had a poster that was following the same format.

here one example of those posters, this was the example I sent around to the sharers

One of the feedback comments stated

The posters are informative but all have the same format (template), Maybe delegates could present their work/research in chosen individual ways?

Let me explain that decision…  I decided on using a template on purpose, for a number of reasons:

  • This needed to work as a stand-alone piece of work, so even if the sharer didn’t bring any other artefacts or documents to show and wasn’t present (due to talking to somebody else at that time), this still needed to make sense. Current poster practice (see my recent blog post on this – told you it made sense to have it as an interlude before this post) shows that stand-alone posters often use what I call a ‘Spineless Report’ or ‘Box Set’ approach. I really didn’t want any of the former, because people get either bored by too much text or frustrated when not having the time to read it all. But a ‘Box Set’ like approach I thought was much better – ask the sharers about something specific.
  • When everybody uses the same template what you end up with are posters that are much easier to compare.
  • I wanted to steer the sharing session towards the process of genring and regenring, so the template was designed to prompt the sharers into that, rather than just show off the fabulous outcomes that they achieved.
  • And I was also already thinking of the special edition of the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice that we are putting together on the back of this. For that we had been talking about a section that shows off examples, like a catalogue in a way, so I actually designed a format with that in mind. I think I can pull the posters into spreads for the journal pretty easily to achieve this catalogue section, making little extra work for the sharers. So it is a multi-genre performing template.

In short, while choosing a template format for the sharing session loses the individuality of expression from the sharers, it gains the easier comparability. As sharers were encouraged to bring extra materials, the format of which they were free to choose themselves, I think they had the opportunity to still customise what they were showing sufficiently.

So why this template?

one previous workshop participants found that a mankini represents the genre of ‘Tweet’

I have designed and worked with a template/format that looks at genre before: the Dress-Up Doll of Formality. In a nutshell this is an activity I designed for my students to become more aware of the ‘rules’ of a genre, by likening writing for a specific audience to dressing for a specific occassion. So what I ask them to do is to design an outfit for a Gingerbreadperson that is like a genre they explore (tweet, academic essay, billboard poster, etc.) and then also add why they chose this outfit. It gets the students to pay attention to the rules in a visual and fun way (and I have also run this as a workshop for staff and management, which can be much fun). This works fine in the context it was designed for, but seemed too simple in the context of this conference. And, of course, it puts the focus on the established rules of one genre, but not on the process of genring or regenring.

a visual representation of Fiona’s theoretical genre framework

Of course there is a theoretical framework custom-made for this, Fiona English’s work, which looks at genre in the context of two orientations, the social and the material, breaking these down further into contextual and discursive as well as thematic and semiotic aspects respectively, to then break these down even further. This one seemed at the other end of the spectrum, a bit too complex. I didn’t want to scare the potential sharers away by sending them a template that basically meant they would first have to read a chapter or book in order to understand it.

So I needed to find a middle ground. Fairly simple to break down, but giving pertinent information. And it needed a simple visual as well, something that could be customised to show a flavour of the individual projects, but still somewhat uniform. And it needed to make sense as a visual metaphor for the process of genring and regenring.

I decided to ask people to focus on the gains and losses that the ‘new’ genre has opposed to the ‘old’ genres it is inspired by or based on. I thought that was probably the most crucial concept, information that people new to genring would need (or want to have) when considering their own projects for the future. And I stumbled across the Venn Diagram as a visual that shows the idea of two different ‘pools’ of genre that overlap – and this overlap is what we are interested in.

template example from Welcome Presentation discussing the outcomes of the Make-Your-Own-Nametag activity

So we first identify the genres the ‘new’ genre is based on. In our context this is often a traditional academic genre (which I put on the left) and a non-academic genre (which I put on the right) – although of course in a different context these might not be linked to academic genres at all, or could all be academic genres. The ‘new’, or featured, genre is in the middle – an ideal place to put an image giving a sense of an example of that genre. And then it is simply a matter of identifying the gains and losses of that genre in the overlap. Of course you ‘lose’ and ‘gain’ things from both sides of the Venn Diagram. For this exercise it is important to try and list all the gains and losses; identifying losses in particular is hard, because usually these are things you are happy to lose, otherwise you wouldn’t decide to try this new genre. But listing it all is really helpful in allowing you to make an informed decision.

I think this template might actually become a simple way to familiarise people with the concept of genring and would also work as an activity sheet to think through potential gains and losses when switching from one genre to the next, so I also made them as a handout with simple instructions that you can download here (including the space we had on the poster for a description of the new genre): Genring Handout blank

The Poster Spectrum in HE

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July 1, 2017
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I promised two follow-up posts to the ReGenring17 conference, but as one of them is also related to thinking recently disseminated at the internal Learning and Teaching conference at Staffordshire University, I thought I would put in this little interlude sharing with you what I talked about then.

The use (and possible mis-use) of academic posters is something I have been thinking about a lot recently, so while I have blogged about this previously here, here is a little update on my thinking. This has been informed by looking at a lot of posters in the academic realm from all sorts of disciplines.

Ever since visualisation literacy researcher and designer Lulu Pinney introduced me to the distinction of designing for immersing the audience in a subject or for igniting their interest in the subject, I have looked out for those distinctions. And I think current poster practice can be located along this spectrum – from immersing to igniting. Here are some (stereotypical) examples I have seen over and over again:

The Spineless Report

The Spineless Report

The idea behind this poster is to put as much of the data you collected onto the poster. It shouts “look at all the stuff that I have done! Surely I deserve extra credit for having collected this much data!” This might not be the best way to communicate your findings, but very often students end up with a poster like this, particularly if this is the only assignment they have to do. The text is invariably way too small to read, there is too much of it. Pictures, if there are any included, tend to be too small. This type of poster is truly trying to immerse you in its subject, and if you drown  in all that information, then that is too bad.

The Box Set

The Box Set

This type of poster follows very clear rules and sections information into boxes. Very often this is based on a template given by the tutor. This is a much more sensible way to use posters in learning and teaching, but again it can often become an exercise in let’s see how much information I can cram into these boxes.

The Infographic

The Infographic

In practice this very often uses smart art from word processing programs, specifically the one that looks most impressive, but not necessarily the one that makes the most sense in the context of the research. However, the infographic format can be really helpful if used correctly – if the student can then avoid the temptation to fill the rest of their poster with text again. And the question remains where to put all the extra research, unless there is another outlet in the assignment mix.

The Visual Metaphor

The Visual Metaphor

This type of poster is dominated by a visual, and adds some text to explain the metaphor as well as extra details.

The Big Picture

The Big Picture

Another type of poster that is dominated by a visual, this time not a visual metaphor, but rather a design or photograph of an actual thing of situation. Text explains the image and adds extra details.

The Poster Spectrum and Higher Education

All of these different examples – and there are probably a few more – have some traits in common. With the genre of the (printed) poster comes the idea of a limited amount of space, usually in a prescribed rectangular size, although the maker might get to choose orientation. With specifying an academic or research poster usually comes the aim of summarising a particular project for a specific audience (that might be experts in the field or lay people, for example). And when academics and researchers put together posters they know their objectives, whether it is to network, tell people about an on-going project or just needed to hand in something so they could attend a particular conference. Based on that knowledge, and of the knowledge of the specific home discipline, it is easy to choose where to locate one’s own poster on the immersing/igniting spectrum.

However, when using the poster format within Higher Education as assessments, this becomes more difficult. I have seen a lot of guidance on academic poster design that highlights the importance of using visuals and being careful not to use too much text. In a way it seems that the advice is to stay away from the immersing end of the spectrum. The assessment acts as another layer of requirement. If the poster is the only assessment required for a course, students have little choice but to go for the immersing end of the spectrum, because it becomes about demonstrating as much of the research they have done as possible. If, however, the poster is part of an assessment mix, then students can afford to not include everything on it, because there will be other opportunities to include those details and information, such as a handout or report, for example. So potentially this will make for less text-heavy posters.

As educators using the academic poster as a learning opportunity for our students, we need to be clear about our objectives in assigning them AND we need to make sure that our students are clear about the aims that the posters themselves have. We need to talk to them about the different types of posters they could produce and the pros and cons each type might bring with it. Because not every poster is alike.

Can you think of any other types not yet included? Please let me know in a comment!

 

The Boardgame Blueprint

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April 22, 2017
Alternative Presentations, stuff to check out, Uncategorized, Writing by Pictures
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I’m very pleased to report that my latest Kickstarter Project was fully funded! Thank you to everybody who backed it!

paper mock-up of Boardgame Blueprint in action

So, what is it all about, you might ask…
I have been playing with the format of boardgames for a while to get my students to reflect on the essay writing process. Getting students together in groups to design their own boardgame themed around essay writing is a really good way of getting them to think about different steps that go into this process, and to identify things they find challenging. It allows me to later talk about the steps they might not be aware of – and how we are going to address this in class. (It is also a pretty fun session, and I would recommend it to anybody who teaches a process to try out.)
Before last term, however, I had always left the fun of designing these games to the students. I have seen some wonderful ones, a lot based on Snakes and Ladders, some on Monopoly, memorable versions of Twister and Cluedo, and other that freestyle it. But then I was wondering what my version would look like. I also was trying to explain to my students how the sessions we do in class map onto the researching and writing they should do, which I always struggled with. So one day I started doodling a game, fitting it into the analogy of the iceberg (which you might be familiar with from Writing Essays by Pictures), that some things are visible over the waterline – i.e. the writing of drafts and the finished piece – and some are invisible under the waterline – i.e. the research. But what in my experience students often didn’t understand (or at least failed to put into practice) is that you don’t do all the research first and then just write it up; in order to put together a great essay, you do some research, some writing, some more research, some rewriting, etc. And the iceberg shape works for that – if you are on a path starting in the middle, going down, then coming up, then going down (this time deeper), and coming back up again. Putting this together as my own sketched version of the game, I could explain this journey much more clearly than with just a timetable – and I liked it so much I made a basic handout for my second years as well, to remind them of the stages that should go into writing an essay.

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After sharing this with some colleagues as well (for example at the session I wrote about here) I thought why not turn this into a version that is shareable, hence the Kickstarter project.
Once they are finished, I will share how they turned out in a new post.

current version

Creative HE Conversation about The Role of the Body in Creative Processes & Practices this week

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April 18, 2017
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Here an invitation by Lisa Clughen that you might be interested in:

NEXT #creativeHE CONVERSATION APRIL 18-22th: The Role of the Body in Creative Processes & Practices

April 21st has just been designated a UN World Creativity & Innovation Day and we are inviting you to join us to explore the theme of ‘the role of the body in creativity’ at:
https://plus.google.com/communities/110898703741307769041

We tend to think of creativity as an imaginative cognitive process that is often depicted as a light bulb sparking off in our heads. In this conversation, though, we want to explore the ways in which our whole bodies are involved in creative processes and practices.

The conversation is open to anyone who has an interest in the theme of the body and creativity, and all perspectives and shared experiences are welcome. We are particularly interested in the views of people who work in higher education as the role of the body in teaching and learning processes is not often addressed. We also welcome the involvement of creative practitioners and tradespeople, who will have particular insights into this phenomenon.

 

Discussion Outline:

DAY 1 April 18: Introductory activity

DAY 2 April 19: The role of the body in helping others to learn

DAY 3 April 20: Your body and the way you inhabit particular spaces that encourage your creativity

DAY 4 April 21: The role of the body in disciplinary or work contexts in which you are creative

DAY 5 April 22: The challenge of enabling learners to become more aware of the ways in which their bodies are involved in their own creativity

 

Further information will be provided daily at: #creativeHE  You can participate at:
https://plus.google.com/communities/110898703741307769041

 

The conversation takes place during World Creativity and Innovation Week and it is Creative Academic’s and #creativeHE’s contribution to this event.

The conversation is being led by Lisa Clughen (Nottingham Trent University) and supported by Norman Jackson and Maria Kefalogianni

Book? Movie? Comic? Breakfast Cereal? – Sharing Thoughts on Genre

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October 23, 2016
LATTICE, Uncategorized
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I have been trying to establish a regular get-together at Staffordshire University, where interested people have the space to share ideas they have come across and/or are using within Learning and Teaching. And as I am organising this, I got to pick our first starting point. Since I am also working on the series of Thinking-through-Genre events with Writing PAD, it is probably not surpsiring that I picked ‘Genre’ as a subject.

I had sent around two links as starting points for discussion: Mahmoud Shaltout’s ‘Peda-Comical: A personal account of comics in education’ (2016), where he reflects on the genre of comic books as a resource within his learning and teaching, as well as Fiona English’s ‘Genre as a Pedagogical Resource as University’ (2015), where she gives a short overview of some of the work in her 2011 book.

On the day I also brought Galman’s The Good, The Bad and The Data (2013) and Sousanis Unflattening (2015), as they are both examples within the comic book genre and I thought this would present a nice extension of the readings. They are particularly interesting when looking at the use of traditional narrative and visual narrative.

What I had overlooked, probably due to my established  familiarity with the subject, was that none of these actually defined the term genre in this context – and neither did I at our meeting until somebody actually specifically asked me to. Clearly I need a bit more practice facilitating these get-togethers so I can set aside my assumptions!

Let’s try to do it now: I think the easiest way to define genre as I am talking about it is that it describes different ways in which to communicate content. Each genre has different rules (or ‘affordances’), and deciding on one over another means that you possibly gain something, but might lose something else. I have previously tried to make this concept accessible in the Dress-up Doll of Formality activity.

My favourite quote that encapsulates this is by Douglas Adams, who wrote:

(…) the moment you have any idea, the second thought that enters your mind after the original idea is “What is this? Is it a book, is it a movie, is it a this, is it a that, is it a short story, is it a breakfast cereal?” Really, from that moment, your decision about what kind of thing it is then determines how it develops. So something will be very, very different if it’s developed as a CD-ROM than if it’s developed as a book. (Adams, 2003: 155f)

This always spoke to me because it makes a lot of sense to a designer. Because in a way (and this is also something we discussed briefly at our meeting), communicating content in a variety of guises is what being a designer (any type of designer, although it might be most obvious in the case of graphic designers) is all about.

And maybe this is also why I have always been absolutely fascinated by adaptations, especially cross-platform ones. Regenring (as in putting the content of one genre into another) is just another word for the same principle.

A visual representation of the 'minutes' of our meeting

A visual representation of the ‘minutes’ of our meeting

With the question of what ‘genre’ actually is (or can be) agreed on, we then proceeded to talk about the affordances it has, and how we can make use of them. The comic book, for example, is what one of us used as part of the dissemination mix of a research project to broaden its impact (find more details here). She made the point that producing a comic didn’t just get some of our Comic and Cartoon Arts students a live project to work on, but more importantly transformed some of the findings from the report into a format accessible to students, the people it might be most valuable to and who were unlikely to read neither the original report nor scholarly articles based on it because of their genre.

In a way the question of accessibility is what we probably most talked about – and particularly the problematic that comes with academic genres that are often not very accessible to students. Not just the question whether it makes more sense to ask students to communicate their research in a format that is more relevant to ‘real life’ than academic formats like the essay or research report, but also the academic genres we use within the university, such as module descriptors, module handbooks and similar, often filled with our own jargon that surely must seem like a foreign language to students. Sure, we give them a glossary, but is this the most accessible way to invite them to understand the processes and procedures of their academic life…?

…something to discuss further in our next meeting!

Drawing Conclusions

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June 14, 2016
Conferences, Uncategorized
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Today I attended a BSA Sociology of the Arts Study Group‘s event entitled ‘Using the Arts in Teaching and Research’. I should say that I am not a sociologist nor do I think of myself as belonging to the social sciences, so this reflection is based on my interest in using arts in teaching and research rather than on the content of the research that was presented. As so often within the arts context, for me today was all about process.

I was treated to a really interesting day. The organisers had split up the presentations into four different sessions dealing with Using Art to Engage with Marginalised Groups, Using Art as a Reflexive Tool, Using Art in Engagement and Dissemination and Using Art in Training and Education respectively. Here are some observations I made (in no particular order, I think of these as possible starting points for more detailed posts in the future, but want to get them down while the event remains fresh in my mind):

When it comes to art and research there seems to be a spectrum at work. I haven’t quite worked out all the details yet, but this ranges from no art,  to using art to illustrate research (that could be findings or part of the process, and it could be already existing art or art specifically generated for the particular project), participatory art might be produced as an integral part of the research, this might then be interpreted by the researcher, or it might be interpreted by the participants themselves and then this will be interpreted by the researcher. And then there is art that has been produced by either researcher and participant or by both in collaboration that becomes a part of the outcome/dissemination.

Issues that these stages have to deal with include:

  • There is almost always a hierarchy between the researcher and the participants/subjects of the research, which at some stage is likely to kick in. For example at one stage the researcher might move from facilitator to the person who interprets results and writes them up – a position of power. It seemed to me that research is more true to the person creating the art if they themselves explain it/reflect on the meaning – and to use that in the analysis of the results rather than the researcher interpreting the work.
  • Depending on the set up of the research (or of the situation that is researched), participants/subjects might feel they need to present an established story (for example of a victim that gets redeemed, triumph over adversity), or might want to give a certain impression due to a (possibly hidden) agenda. Again a perceived hierarchy might complicate things.
  • It is really hard to plan and tie down a research protocol, because very often you don’t know in advance what data you will get. At the beginning participants might be concerned they are ‘doing it wrong’ and might want to get very specific instructions (and the ‘but I can’t draw’ response for drawing as part of research is a common occurrence in this context). However, certainly one of the great things about using arts-based research is that once participants feel empowered by it they often develop their own way of responding, which might be completely unexpected by the researcher. But this means that the forms in which the data comes might be surprising.
  • There were nods to thinking about working with artists – and being mindful of what that might mean for the artists, i.e. typically artists are freelance and payment through the university systems are notoriously slow, and the project, i.e. budget for the artists needs to be planned in from the very beginning, whether that is artist as illustrator, facilitator or co-researcher.

Of course we also discussed arts-based research in the context of today’s academic framework, so what exactly is practice-based research and is it becoming more accepted for submission as part of the (UK’s) Research Excellence Framework? Is it maybe easier to use this as part of an impact study? How can it be captured, and is it ok to collect and present research that is inherently subjective?

Needless to say, I came home with a lot of food for thought.

 

Of Fountain Pens and Talk Prep Tangos

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June 8, 2016
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On 8th July I will be going to an event on The Body in Learning and Teaching in Nottingham (more information can be found here if you would like to join us – and if it’s too late look out for the paper attached to that site), and as preparation Lisa Clughen (who is organising it) asked participants to send her a sketch of how our body is important in our own academic practice. This is the task she sent:

The purpose of the event is to explore the centrality of the body to learning and teaching. To begin our explorations, can I ask you to email me an image that conveys a sense of how the body relates to different aspects of your learning or teaching? To stimulate your thinking, I will give you an example of a core aspect of my life as a lecturer: writing. Whenever I sit to write, I have to have at least one cup of tea ready before I sit down. It’s a ritualistic part of making my physical environment feel right for the task ahead. As I write, you’ll see me picking up the cup, enjoying its warmth, taking it to the window and drinking from it as my writing develops. Having my cup of tea is central to my efforts – my actions with the cup are fully embroiled with my writing as they provide a space for it to take shape. A cup of tea would definitely be one of my images, then – the place does not feel conducive to writing without it. What is yours?

Prompted by this I’ve been thinking a lot about the activities and things that at first glance appear to be on the periphery of (my) academic practice, but that really might be much more central to it. Maybe most important of these are the writing implements I use. Or maybe that should better be the ‘mark making’ implements, because I don’t ‘just’ write, even when in the process of putting together an academic paper. I have been on at least two (work) trips where my progress stalled due to the lack of a fountain pen. It’s not like I didn’t have ballpoint pens or pencils, markers or felt tip pens with me (and probably a selection of all of the above), but on neither of these trips I had taken my ‘good’ fountain pen. The one my parents got me when I finished my Masters that has accompanied me ever since. And it turns out that I couldn’t write anything useful until I bought a cheap fountain pen on both occasions. (I’m happy to report that I got smarter and now usually take a fountain pen on trips, even if it is just one of the two cheap ones I now also have.) There is just something about the flow of ink that makes my thoughts flow that doesn’t quite happen with the roll of the ballpoint pen.

Thinking about my academic practice and how the body plays a part in it has been quite useful, and revealing. Scribbling, ripping, cutting and pasting, spreading things out on the floor, reordering, drafting and typing are all activities that come to mind. But to me nothing seems to be more important than walking. I have realised that I have different types of walks that accompany the drafting of pretty much any important piece of writing I do, be that a crucial email, a new module handbook, a conference presentation or lecture, or even an academic paper. There is the ambling through the park to think through initial ideas; the walk of a first draft – in long strides pretty much around a block in my neighbourhood; pacing up and down my living room.

But maybe the most interesting is what I seem to regularly do when preparing a formal talk (could be for a conference, could be a more ordinary lecture): every so often I will interrupt writing my notes or slides to get up and talk to myself (sometimes in my head, sometimes out loud), pondering the right turn of phrase. This is not a time in which I walk specifically, or at least not great distances. It’s more like a fairly slow dance without music. When I’m at home it sometimes takes me from my desk to the hall or even the kitchen (I agree with Lisa there, the kettle is a very important writing ‘implement’, too), but mostly it is a few steps in one direction, then back, moving my weight from one foot to the other or from the tips to the heels. Sometimes my swivel chair becomes a temporary partner as I lean over the back to make an adjustment in the text already on screen or to pick up my trusty fountain pen to add to the notes or fill a post-it with an idea for future use. But mostly this is a dance solo, a ritual which allows me to imagine myself in front of an audience that doesn’t mind me searching for the perfect turn of phrase or starting a sentence over and over again until it is finally right and I get to the end of the argument.

Talk Prep Tango

One variation of the Talk Prep Tango

 

There will be a reprise of this Talk Prep Tango, usually the night before going public with the talk. This might take place at home or in a hotel room somewhere. Alas, the public performance will be much less like a dance, less searching and more like a person just talking.

[This post was drafted during a number of walks and then with a fountain pen before it was typed up. A Talk Prep Tango was not involved in its making.]

What to take home from a study trip

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April 26, 2016
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Because I teach writing to art and design students, I’m not really attached to a particular subject team, which means that before this academic year I was never asked to go on study trips with the students. Turns out I have been missing out, as I realised this year when I was asked to go on not just one, but two of them.

The first one was in October, when Lucy Brown from our Graphic Design department turned some of the research she had been doing for her MA (as reported on here) into an assignment folded into a two nights stay in the Lake District. Not only did we visit the James Cropper Paper Mill, we also did a walk the students had previously planned and would subsequently make creative documentations of. It was fascinating to accompany a quarter of the students on their walk and to see them take notes in all sorts of ways – not least photographs (which they knew they were not allowed to directly use in the artists books they had to prepare as an assignment later in the term).

Pulp that will be made into paper soon
students documenting our walk
taking inspiration from the surroundings

The second one was with a group of animation students to California in February, where we visited a number of studios and the Walt Disney Family Museum (and yes, the weather for this was much nicer than the one we had in the Lakes in October). We also popped by the Character Animation course at CalArts and were invited to take part in a Live Drawing Class with them as well as stick around for a demonstration lecture/chat with the animator James Baxter in the evening.

James Baxter demonstrating animating
James Baxter demonstrating animating

Thinking back to both of these trips now, I am thinking about what we ‘bring back’ from a study trip – and how best to consolidate this. There is something to be said about having the first hand experience of how something works –  explaining how paper is made is very different to walking around a paper mill in full swing with your safety glasses and ear protectors (yes, on an industrial scale that can be quite loud), just as much as having a vague idea of animation being produced in a studio system is nothing like walking around a range of different size studios and being able to talk to people who actually work there. James Baxter’s demonstration, while it was located within an educational institution, was the closest thing you will get to being in an animator’s head for 3 hours – because that is what happened – he was sitting at an animator’s desk, animated a scene and talked us through what he was thinking/doing at the time – and at the end of it he had a few seconds of film (for the sort of thing he was doing that evening, check out his blog here).

At their simplest, study trips are probably about collecting information, whether the point is to find out how certain things work or to be inspired for your own work doesn’t really matter, I guess for creatives it is always a combination of the two. But this is also the problem, because you have a few days that are really intense, and you come home having to tease out what actually happened in order to be able to make sense of all the layers of things that were going on (not unlike going to a conference for academics, I guess). It is crucial to make time to work through this, because otherwise these trips will remain as a folder of pictures snapped or maybe a few mementos picked up on the way.

That is why study trips NEED a follow-up activity for students. Both of these trips had them – the Graphic Design students all made artists books, which are now on the way to being exhibited back in the Lake District, the animation students had an exhibition at the university with some work created as a response to the trip.

And while I know that this is so important, it is sad to think about how often I don’t take the time myself to create a response that allows me to think in more detail about what I have found out after coming back from a fact-finding mission – whether it be a meeting at a different institution or a more formal conference. Who knows how much I could improve my practice if I was able to do this more than just sporadically… but then at least I blog occasionally.

Alke's California Adventure - my response to the study trip Just don't ask me what it means...

Alke’s California Adventure – my response to the study trip
Just don’t ask me what it means…

P.S.: With the study trip to California I wasn’t able to go to the HEA Arts and Humanities conference this year, but it sounds like some pretty good session were there, particularly when it comes to object learning as you can check out in this write up by Dr Paul Kleiman.

Groundhog Day and the Art of Editing

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February 2, 2016
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It is February, 2nd and everybody seems to be talking about Groundhog Day (the film).  In fact, I pretty much started my day What’s App-ing my sisters (who live in Germany and Italy) that one of the Sky channels is showing it today back-to-back for 24 hours, which I think is hilarious. But while reading the connected article in The Independent online, I was thinking that while this is funny, there was an opportunity missed, because although the sections here occasionally change a tiny bit, they don’t quite change enough. The great thing about the film is that at the end (spoiler alert), Phil gets his day just right!

Really if seen in an academic context, Groundhog Day is an analogy of editing: Just like Phil is trapped in this day, when writing a paper/chapter/book/whatever, a writer can easily get into a routine where you change small things – or big things – see how they pan out, and if they don’t quite work, you go back to the beginning. You reflect on what worked out in your last draft and what didn’t quite work, and you change it. Sometimes you refine details, sometimes you change the big stuff. Sometimes you change it back, sometimes you decide that a totally new direction is needed. And only once everything is in place you can finally move on to the next piece, just like Phil finally moved on to February, 3rd. Unfortunately, though, is that even if it feels like you are stuck in a timeloop while editing your own writing, time goes on around you and you might get to your deadline before you are ready to move on. I can only assume this happens because we don’t actually live in movies…

East Midlands Writing PAD Forum on 14th December 2015

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December 23, 2015
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Last week I met up with some colleagues in Leicester to catch up and make some plans for the future. Check out the blog post that Julia posted about our get-together here – I was mainly excited about showing off my academic quilt 😉

I came back re-energised and with two main areas to develop for 2016: the academic poster as a genre and supporting post-graduate researchers in their writing. I’ll keep you posted!