amiddlet50

Enjoyment, anticipation, challenge as factors affecting personal intrinsic investment #heutagogy

by amiddlet50
May 25, 2018

In our research-informed development activities looking at learner non-engagement with formative assessment, with group work or with engaging in feedback, it is becoming clear that the lack of space given to developing learner ‘buy-in’ or developing ‘want’ is highly significant in academic design and practice.

I saw a group of …
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Titling creative work – innovation and agency

by amiddlet50
May 20, 2018

As someone with a strong producer self-identity, I think crafting titles can be a useful way of capturing the essence of what you are trying to do and give you focus. This applies to books, articles, essays, student work, videos, songs, blog posts, photographs, paintings, performances… anything that involves a …
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Learning through Co-production #MELSIG_SHU

by amiddlet50
May 16, 2018

Learning through co-production makes sense to me. It suggests a form of purposeful, active learning with peers. This is the approach we are taking at the next Media-Enhanced Learning Special Interest Group (MELSIG) event in Sheffield on 21st June. It’s not new for MELSIG – we’ve run workshops, co-produced research …
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The habit of thinking differently by looking more deeply

by amiddlet50
May 3, 2018

An exploration of visual literacies and multiple intelligences
There are many reasons why I have committed to exploring the idea of learning walks in terms of learning space and many of those reasons have been discussed here previously. For the last four months, I have been undertaking a daily …
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Global #Twalkday

by amiddlet50
April 19, 2018

Global #Twalkday

Wednesday 3rd October 2018

Theme: Doing, being, becoming, belonging and connecting

Time: 3pm GMT (but options for other time zones to be decided)
What is Twalkday?
The Twalk will be co-ordinated globally and is planned to coincide with the start of a new academic year. It provides teachers …
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Missed opportunities – where are the alternatives to Storify?

by amiddlet50
March 11, 2018

It’s easy to store, but making sense of it all is an art. photo by Kevin Utting Creative Commons attribution licence

Storify.com is shutting up shop and this has been troubling me since the news was announced several months ago. The main problem, as I see it, is that …
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Where are you taking me? Thinking about the politics of network

by amiddlet50
March 5, 2018

The transcript of ‘Learning Networks, Not Teaching Machines’, a keynote delivered at EDEN 2015 in Barcelona by Audrey Watters in 2015, is a good read for anyone interested in networked learning, media-enhanced learning, and the use of social media for learning. I’d not read it before, but it exists …
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Researching academic innovation to foster belonging

by amiddlet50
March 4, 2018

separate ideas or single big idea? Photo by moren hsu on Unsplash

I am working with an innovative subject group at the moment who have done much to foster student belonging. They have a long list of small recent and current initiatives intended to develop a cohesive disciplinary identity. …
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The writing is on the wall – poetry and place

by amiddlet50
February 28, 2018

There has been an interesting little discussion on Twitter today following a post from @viviennestern.

This, on a wall @sheffhallamuni made me stop and stare. For all the vitriol about universities, they exist to help us think better, understand more. What a brilliant architectural expression of this. Thank you …
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#minitwalk demonstrates the flexibility of the #twalk model at #socmedhe17

by amiddlet50
February 22, 2018

Mini-twalking – an ideal pre-Xmas learning activity!

Since our first successful use of the #twalk model in May 2017, a number of #twalks have used the model in different situations. Our experience and understanding of the #twalk is growing. A number of us involved in trialing this in …
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Polycontextual bridging – how to be in two places at once

by amiddlet50
February 22, 2018

Photo by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash

Polycontextual bridging (Elstad, 2016) is a useful term that allows us to explore literacies around engaging with hybridity, blended learning spaces and learning literacies. Simply, it refers to the experience of being in two or more places at once. Before associating this immediately …
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B plus or A minus? Assessment in the creative disciplines

by amiddlet50
February 13, 2018

I attended ‘B plus or A minus? Assessment in the creative disciplines’, part of a programme of events being run by the University of the Arts London last week. The venue, Central St Martin’s (CSM) new Granary Wharfe, is a remarkable conversion and I recommend a visit if you get …
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Voices of Innovators #Twalk #audiofeedback

by amiddlet50
January 11, 2018

Two new toolkits have been developed on the Media-Enhanced Learning Special Interest Group site for which I am responsible. They signal a good shift for the nebulous group of innovators that comes the way of MELSIG according to it current themes and foci. Known for its events, which I hope …
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Place is our starting point

by amiddlet50
January 1, 2018

“In Aristotle …we have a very powerful philosophy of place as the starting point for all other forms of existence.” (Cresswell, 2009, p. 2)

This year will see the publication of my book Reimagining Spaces for Learning in Higher Education. Central to its thesis is the proposition that place and …
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#socmedhe17 – what next?

by amiddlet50
December 21, 2017

The third annual Social Media for Learning in Higher Education Conference took place this week at Sheffield Hallam University. I have been involved with it throughout and may claim some responsibility for proposing we run it in the first place on the back of interest in #BYOD4L, several Media Enhanced …
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Twalking as digital placemaking #twalk #socmedhe17

by amiddlet50
December 16, 2017

This 10 minute screencast introduces the key ideas of the twalk concept – learning walks with integrated tweetchats – and the pedagogic rationale underpinning walking, talking, tweeting and thinking.

The video is part of the Twalk Toolkit being developed on the Media-Enhanced Learning Special Interest Group site in time for …
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Can anyone #twalk ? #socmedhe17

by amiddlet50
December 15, 2017

Next week myself, Alex Spiers, Chris Rowell and Jeff Waldock will run our workshop ‘Walk this Way’ at SocMedHE17. We will be joined in spirit at least by Santanu Vasant and Claire Moscrop. Between us, we ran the #twalk on Digital Placemaking last May. Our workshop will reflect on …
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From outside-in to inside-out (and possibly back-to-front) rethinking #feedback

by amiddlet50
December 11, 2017

Back in the 1990s I was a young developer working in the Learning & Teaching Institute at Sheffield Hallam University. One project that I was not directly involved with, but which I was present for, was on developing the use of feedback. Led by Richard Higgins and Peter Hartley, publications …
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“Things that the mind already knows” – what is an assessment? #assessment #briefing

by amiddlet50
December 11, 2017

The American artist Jasper Johns, whose retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy closed over the weekend, was fascinated with exploring the theme ‘Things that the Mind Already Knows’. He is perhaps best known for his interest in iconographic images, especially the American national flag ‘the stars and stripes’.

Here is …
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Learning obscured due to overcrowding

by amiddlet50
December 9, 2017

Following on from my previous post on the criticality of students being clear about their assessment, I note that Black & Wiliam (1998, pp. 9-10) make similar points, while talking about self-assessment, about the engagement of students with their assessment.

Pupils can only assess themselves when they have a …
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All clear? It’s more than #feedback

by amiddlet50
December 9, 2017

I am in the middle of a large programme of work at my university addressing assessment and feedback. I have always understood that addressing the enhancement of academic practice in this area is more complex than some of the hygiene-focused discourse suggests and the conversations we are having with academic …
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The problem of developing consistency in academic team innovation #SEDAconf

by amiddlet50
November 20, 2017

My colleague Helen Kay and I worked with one of our course teams last year to role out SCALE UP (Student-Centred Active Learning for Upside-down Pedagogy). The expanded name of the learning space model is very descriptive and clarifies why a shift to SCALE UP will be a challenge for …
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Friendship and the classroom

by amiddlet50
September 27, 2017

I attended a seminar today given by my colleague Emma Heron. I was fortunate enough to mentor Emma through a year-long research project looking at the role of friendship in the student experience. It was good to catch up today after several months and connect some of my own work …
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#audiofeedback – join me in building a toolkit

by amiddlet50
August 23, 2017

I would like to invite you to share your experience of using audio feedback and to become part of a network of voices. For those of you who use audio feedback, video feedback or screencast feedback this should be easy to do and, I hope, rewarding for you.

What’s involved:…
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Learning from the Futurists: analysis of the third Futurist manifesto

by amiddlet50
August 11, 2017

The route of the manifesto as an art form is Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ The Communist Manifesto (1848). Loud, clear and confrontational, this form was later adopted by F.T.Marinetti in The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism (1909), and from this innumerable creatives have played with the form (Danchev, 2011). …
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What does studio mean to you? #learningspaces

by amiddlet50
August 2, 2017

I would value your thoughts if you have ever studied or practised in a studio. Studios are used in many disciplines and I am trying to understand if there is an essential meaning and identity associated with the studio as a learning space or place of practice.

Responses will inform …
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Peripatetic space – we twalked again, like we did last summer

by amiddlet50
July 31, 2017

On Friday we twalked again – that is we walked, talked and tweeted (#twalk). Unlike our hot, sunny walk in May, it rained a lot! As mentioned in the previous post, Friday’s twalk was part of ALT’s Learning Spaces Special Interest Group meeting which was co-hosted in The Diamond by …
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Stretch your legs #lssig #twalk #TwalkBoundaries

by amiddlet50
July 27, 2017

Join us for a Twalk tomorrow, Friday 28th July between 14:15 and 15:30 BST

If you joined us at the end of May on the #MELSIG #SIGCLANS Twalk you will undoubtedly want to join us again – wherever you are. You will already understand how we can take a walk …
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Reflections on workshops given on Active Learning Classrooms #activelearning

by amiddlet50
July 12, 2017

These slides capture our reflections on Active Learning and Active Learning Classrooms following workshops presented at Nottingham Trent University, Sheffield Hallam University and University of Sheffield teaching and learning events.

If you are working in this area we would love to hear from you: @andrewmid #activelearning

…
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Ghost walks, palimpsest, psychogeography

by amiddlet50
July 11, 2017

(cc) Julian Kucklict on Flick

As a printmaker I was/am (?) obsessed with the subject of urban ‘witnesses’, Tinsley viaduct and the cooling towers outside Sheffield being a particular favourite subject for me. I painted, drew, photographed gasometers, weaving sheds, wind turbines and other edifices, old and new, that seem …
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Syndicated Blog Posts by amiddlet50

Enjoyment, anticipation, challenge as factors affecting personal intrinsic investment #heutagogy

Titling creative work – innovation and agency

Learning through Co-production #MELSIG_SHU

B plus or A minus? Assessment in the creative disciplines

Voices of Innovators #Twalk #audiofeedback

From outside-in to inside-out (and possibly back-to-front) rethinking #feedback

“Things that the mind already knows” – what is an assessment? #assessment #briefing

Learning obscured due to overcrowding

All clear? It’s more than #feedback

The problem of developing consistency in academic team innovation #SEDAconf

Friendship and the classroom

#audiofeedback – join me in building a toolkit

Learning from the Futurists: analysis of the third Futurist manifesto

What does studio mean to you? #learningspaces

Peripatetic space – we twalked again, like we did last summer

Stretch your legs #lssig #twalk #TwalkBoundaries

Reflections on workshops given on Active Learning Classrooms #activelearning

Ghost walks, palimpsest, psychogeography

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