Wise Men “A fact: You will always feel like your work isn’t good enough. As a salve, or simply as a way to stay sane, be in the world. Ride the train. Listen to strangers. Occasionally, if you’re brave, speak to them. Walk in the city you live. Pay attention. Don’t bother with taking notes, or buying fancy notepads. Try to remember as much as you can. Have just enough confidence in yourself to not be an asshole. Then, get up and go to work and try again.” taken from…Stuart Nadler http://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/fifteen-successful-authors-share-their-best-writing-tips
After, I guess, what must be 17 years…I returned to Falmouth! having studied illustration at the Woodlane campus in 1994, the place of course looked different, the sleepy Cornish town as I remember it, is now set within a contemporary facade of cool bars and restaurants….hip!! and so back to the reason for travelling North to the South, spending 16 hours on an aching bottom to the point of being almost delirious-was to attend the Pedare (pronounced Pe-da-re) conference held at The Exchange, Penmere.
To provide some background information… ‘Pedare’ is the Centre for Pedagogic Arts-Based Research. It’s community is made up of educators, academics, scholars, researcher and practitioners, their focus is to generate leading research in e-learning, pure pedagogic research, performance based pedagogy and visual thinking within the arts curriculum- ‘We explore the creative curriculum generating leading edge teaching and learning methods, practices and insights that contribute to and inform education practices and policy’…Perdare 2013
Workshop 1 Visual Thinking led by Rob Bloxham from ‘ORB’ creative agency http://www.thisisorb.com/
The first part of this session was to get into partners, one to tell the story, the other to draw it and then re-tell in 30 seconds. (the aim here was to see how much you were able to remember through visuals). The 2nd part of the session required us to get into groups of 4 and apply drawing’s only to come up with a number of ideas exploring a particular brand. Our Brand was called ‘Glide’- life made simple…the concept behind this was life could be made sooooooooooooooo much easier if students who use ‘Glide’ for help with financial matters, i.e. paying bills etc would be much happier students?. We decided to come up with an app called Sim-ple which required 5 players to sign up and become one of the household issues, the game would resolve in the student being directed to ‘Glides’ webpage and sign up??? something like that anyway…
Workshop 2 Interactive Spectatorships Led by Dr. Dario Llinares and Dr Sarah Arnold
Taken from Pedare website…Interactive Spectatorships is a project funded and based at Falmouth University. It aims to investigate the effect of social networking technologies, and the attendant influence of new digital cultures, on film studies pedagogic practice specifically and film spectatorship generally. We aim to explore the potential forcommunications media such as Twitter to be deployed as a interactive tool for facilitating students’ critical engagement and discussion of indicative viewing.
This was a great session, and valuable to my research, it looked at encouraging students into a situation where a screening of i.e. Jackie Brown, Catfish, Moon etc with aid of twitter could be used as learning tool. Its focus -a multi-tasking platform that enables students to express him or herself through ongoing commentary that is in real time rather than an after thought discussion with tutors and peers. Further, a student used in this pilot did note that he watched it again (alone) without any distractions and although may have not been discussed in a group situation was talked about with other cohorts for up to a week later…whether we think this is a good idea or not is questionable? but the aim here is not to take away the notion of watching a film, that little place of worship, where the screen poses itself as a bright shiny god-like figure. Instead, it is about enhancing teaching and learning to watching media, in this case using twitter as a quiet mode of communication to act and respond in real time.
Workshop 3 Screen Writing- Everything but the Movie led by Neil Fox
note to myself- Must watch Casablanca!! Again another interesting session…the focus here was to work with ‘haiku’ a Japanese poetry form that uses just a few words to capture a moment and create a picture in the readers mind. Thus a tiny window into a scene much larger than itself. We all had to write one and later read aloud for others to guess…ok this was mine.
‘intense relationships and lobsters in a pan,
large framed glasses, androgyny, exhibition of dialogue,
attraction, love and comedy ingenious’
Wise Men “A fact: You will always feel like your work isn’t good enough. As a salve, or simply as a way to stay sane, be in the world. Ride the train. Listen to strangers. Occasionally, if you’re brave, speak to them. Walk in the city you live. Pay attention. Don’t bother with taking notes, or buying fancy notepads. Try to remember as much as you can. Have just enough confidence in yourself to not be an asshole. Then, get up and go to work and try again.” taken from…Stuart Nadler http://www.timeout.com/newyork/things-to-do/fifteen-successful-authors-share-their-best-writing-tips
After, I guess, what must be 17 years…I returned to Falmouth! having studied illustration there at the Woodlane campus in 1994, the place of course had changed, and for the better! what I remember as a very laid back sleepy town, with too many pasty shops and ‘Trago’ department store has had a make over; the old docks now have a contemporary facade of cool bars and restaurants. And so the reason for travelling North to the South, spending 16 hours on an aching bottom to the point of being almost delirious; was to attend the Pedare (pronounced Pe-da-re) conference held at The Exchange, Penmere.
To provide some background information ‘Pedare’ is the Centre for Pedagogic Arts-Based Research. It’s community is made up of educators, academics, scholars, researcher and practitioners, their focus is to generate leading research in e-learning, pure pedagogic research, performance based pedagogy and visual thinking within the arts curriculum- ‘We explore the creative curriculum generating leading edge teaching and learning methods, practices and insights that contribute to and inform education practices and policy’…
Workshop 1 Visual Thinking led by Rob Bloxham and others
The first part of this session was to get into partners, one was required to tell the story and the other to draw it and then re-tell in 30 seconds. The 2nd part of the session required us to get into groups of 4 and apply drawing only to come up with a number of ideas exploring a particular brand. Our Brand was called ‘Glide’ life made simple…the concept behind this was life could be made easier if students which to Glide for help with financial matters, i.e. paying bills etc. We decided to come up with an app called Sim-ple which required 5 players to sign up and become one of the household issues, the game would resolve in the student being directed Glides webpage and sign up??? something like that anyway…
Workshop 2 Interactive Spectatorships Led by Dr. Dario Llinares and Dr Sarah Arnold
Taken from Pedare website…Interactive Spectatorships is a project funded and based at Falmouth University. It aims to investigate the effect of social networking technologies, and the attendant influence of new digital cultures, on film studies pedagogic practice specifically and film spectatorship generally. We aim to explore the potential forcommunications media such as Twitter to be deployed as a interactive tool for facilitating students’ critical engagement and discussion of indicative viewing.
This was a great session, and valuable to my research, it looked at encouraging students into a situation where a screening of i.e. Jackie Brown, Catfish, moon etc with aid of twitter can be used as learning tool. A multi-tasking platform that enables students to express him or herself through ongoing commentary that is in real time rather than an after thought discussion with tutors and peers. Further, a student used in this pilot did note that he watched it again (alone) without any distractions and although may have not been discussed in a group situation was talked about with other cohorts for up to a week later…whether we think this is a good idea or not is questionable? but the aim here is not to take away the notion of watching a film, isolated, within the confounds of darkened room, a place of worship, modeled on a theatre, instead it is about enhancing teaching and learning to watching media, in this case using twitter as a quiet mode of communication to act and respond in real time.
Workshop 3 Screen Writing- Everything but the Movie led by Neil Fox
note to myself- Must watch Casablanca!! Again another interesting session…the focus here was to work with ‘haiku’ a Japanese poetry form that uses just a few words to capture a moment and create a picture in the readers mind. Thus a tiny window into a scene much larger than itself. We all had to write one and later read a loud for others to guess…ok this was mine. any ideas??????
‘intense relationships and lobsters in a pan,
large framed glasses, androgyny, exhibition of dialogue,
attraction, love and comedy ingenious’
Heidi Donohoe
Arts Faculty Research 