Tag: creative

My experience on the LTHEchat organising team

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In December 2017 I became involved in the LTHE chat group. I’d heard about it from a lecturer at my University, Sue Beckingham. It had also started trending on my Twitter channels due to my followers and followees involvement.

So just before the Christmas break I took part in my first #LTHEchat, answering questions about learning and teaching spaces. I enjoyed seeing responses from various academics and researchers, and joining in the conversation. At first I was worried that perhaps I was joining in where I shouldn’t have been, as I didn’t have the relevant experience and knowledge however, it became apparent that my views were valued by those taking part, as I could provide the student voice, but also incorporate my own interest in and understanding of higher education learning and teaching techniques.

After my first chat, Sue Beckingham, one of the LTHE steering team, contacted me to thank me for contributing and to  let me know that the team were looking for volunteers for the organising team for the Easter-Summer session.

We began to discuss the process of being in the organising team via, along with my two fellow team members – Dr Hala Mansour and Suzanne Faulkner. From there, we were invited as admin to the WordPress blog (www.lthechat.com) so that we could post the blog for each chat. We had a team meeting on Skype so that we could all meet each other (sort of) and chat about our availability and skills.

Most of the organisation for each chat takes place on Google Docs, where we assign tasks for each week – blog post, question posting, creating the Wakelet etc. However, we also have a Twitter chat group where we tend to communicate the most, it’s perfect for quick-fire questions and answers and pulling together each task and element of the LTHEchat for each week. It’s also been really nice because we’ve gotten to know each other in the chat and supported each other to ensure the smooth running of each chat (as near as possible anyway!) If somebody isn’t feeling well or has a really busy schedule for a day or a few days, the team has come together to support each other, which I think has been what I’ve enjoyed the most about it.

In terms of my own development, I’ve already had considerable experience of using Google Docs to facilitate a project, I’ve also used WordPress for my own blog sites and to curate/publish other blog sites and posts so didn’t develop any new skills here. However, it’s always good to get more experience and use tools for a slightly different purpose/audience.

I’d not used Wakelet before so, I’ve really enjoyed getting to grips with it. As digital and social media tools go it’s pretty straightforward. I’ll certainly keep it in mind for future projects where it could be relevant as it’s a fantastic way of gathering social media content and keeping a record of it. It’s incredibly easy to use (I found) and ensures all the great questions and responses for each chat are recorded in one place, to be looked at any time.

For anybody who is thinking of or would like to get involved in LTHEchat in the future, whether it be responding to the questions, curating the topic and questions for one of the chats or being part of the organising team for a session, I would definitely recommend getting involved. It might be based on a simple idea of sharing and curating knowledge by asking questions and giving responses but, it’s so much more than that. There’s a real community, a real sense that everybody has something to share, and something to learn. The creators of the chat wanted to create something that would be a truly collaborative projects, where anybody can share, ask, learn and create. And that’s definitely what they’ve done.

My next aim: to curate the questions for one of the chats!

I haven’t spoken too much here about the creation and ideals behind the LTHEchat project so, for anybody who wants to know more, click here to head over to the LTHEchat blog. You can also find them on Twitter here. So, if you’re interested in teaching and learning techniques, higher education, social media, communication and more, just come and get involved!

Media Technologies Module Summary!

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Well that’s that! I’ve received my final grade for the Media Technologies module so, all the work is completed! On the whole I’ve really gotten a lot out of this module and I’m pleased with my results. It’s definitely opened my eyes to new possibilities, added some new skills to my repertoire and increased my awareness of what’s going on within the technologies industries.

I think the main thing I’ve taken from the classes, is one of the first things I was told, in the introductory lecture of the module. My lecturer described that in order to prevent ourselves and others from being ‘monkeys with weapons’, we need to fully understand the technology we use, not just the physical thing, but the whole infrastructure as well, the privacy and legal implications, the whole shebang!

Upon starting the module I decided to start blogging for it, I’ve completed one blog post for every class, that’s one blog per week for the lectures and seminars. This has definitely helped me take in everything I can from the classes and it helped tremendously for the assignments, as I could just scroll through my blog and see all the research and learning I’d done throughout the module. It increased the amount of time I spent doing extra research, the recommended readings for the week and meant I put a lot of thought into creating the blog posts each week using the readings, my own notes and further research.

I made sure to keep up with all news relating to technology and used that to add to my knowledge of the subjects we discussed in the classes. It helped massively to have a hashtag for Twitter and a group on Facebook specifically for the module as well, so that we could share anything and discuss things we thought were interesting/relevant. Although most students didn’t take advantage of this and didn’t really start any proper discussions using those pages, I found it useful to look at articles being shared on there by a small group of students, and share my own research as well. Social media has played a big part in this module, for me anyway – quite apt really!

I think I’ve waffled enough for now. I just wanted to create one more short blog post to round of this module – for myself and those who are reading it/will read it. As an exercise I’ve really enjoyed it and found it helped a great deal when completing my assignments. It’s definitely made me want to post more on my blog as well, I mean, if I can find the time to write a blog post for the two media technologies classes every week, surely I can find a couple of hours to write a bit more regularly!

It’s been a challenging module, and it’s been challenging blogging about it but, I like challenges and I’ve gotten more from this module, than I have for any other module whilst I’ve been at University. Creating the app with my friend was very difficult, time consuming and meant learning a lot in a short space of time but, I was very proud of what was achieved and that moment when everything is working and you get to share your ideas and products with others, is worse the creative angst! Writing the blog post for the second assignment made me think in my detail about a product that many own but few actually understand. The devices we surround ourselves with have consequences, and the governments and companies that maintain our privacy, security and personal information records, are constantly doing things we may not notice, if we do not pay attention.

There, all done! Many thanks if you’ve been reading my posts for this module series. I hope you’ve enjoyed them and gotten something from them. Onwards!

Yellow is an overlooked colour

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I’ll admit, I’m not the biggest fan of yellow – although my bedroom was yellow when I was a child. When you think of your favourite colour, or ask another what colour they enjoy, they’ll rarely answer with yellow (so far as I have experienced anyway), it’s usually red, green, blue, pink, something like that. Hence the title of this blog post, I think yellow is often overlooked in terms of the colours on the spectrum and yet, there are lots of lovely things that are yellow. So, with this in mind here are some of the things I think about when thinking of yellow, and some of the reasons why I think we should appreciate this beautiful colour a little more. Many thanks to the WordPress Daily Prompt, which gave me the idea for this post!

1. Coldplay – Yellow

I won’t pretend to be a massive fan of Coldplay – to be honest I’m more of a Killers or Red Hot Chilli Peppers kinda girl. However, sometimes a bit of Coldplay is just what the doctor ordered, mellow yellow! I mean, who’s not partial to a bit of The Scientist right? The word yellow always brings this chilled song into my head, it’s just a classic.

2. Daffodils

Yellow will always make me think of daffodils. As a person I’ve always been fond of them but, really they were my Nans favourite. She passed away from cancer 4 years ago now and they’ll always remind me of her. As soon as they appeared in the shops they’d be all over her house, they’d sprout up all over the garden during Spring and she’d keep them until the winter would come. Nowadays my parents, auntie, grandpa etc. will keep them all over, just to remind us all of my Nan. When I buy daffodils now, I don’t buy them for me, I buy them for my Nan.

3. Sunsets

I think most people will tend to think of orange and red tones when they think of sunsets. However, when we were young and we drew the sun in a picture, we’d always use a yellow crayon to colour it in. I think there are lots of colours in sunsets, it does depend on the time and season of the sunset though, summer sunsets take longer and produce more colours. The beautiful tones that come together, work in glorious harmony to create the vivid sunsets we enjoy, with oranges, reds, pinks, yellows, all blazing across the sky. Even thinking about the sunset now, I can close my eyes and picture the waning sunlight coming through my eyelids, the stillness of a mild summer evening, the last warmth of the day on my skin.

4. Autumn Colours

From summer sunsets, to autumnal colours. I think this is another one that people overlook, again people will think primarily of red and orange when they think of the leaves turning to autumn colours before falling from the trees. However, depending on the type of tree, a lot of leaves will turn a wonderful golden, yellow colour, and that’s my personal favourite.